Santa Fe!

Finally. Santa Fe.

but, you know, it's not really like that.

We have had the most leisurely drive out west, I think.

We've driven plenty, no doubt; weathered zillions of delays; got started late; drove until later. All of it, no prob. But I think there was round after round of public and private woot! when we crossed over into New Mexico. At that point, the landscape changed, the tenor changed… we were somewhere else. Finally, irrefutably. And that is the goal of a trip for me: to be somewhere else.

Today, from the second we got into NM, the weather started fuckin' with us, I will say that. The morning in Amarillo brought glorious light and a breeze; by the time we pulled over to see The Cadillac Ranch, the mercury was climbing but the breeze (wind, even?) was hanging in there. Later, in NM, right across the border in Tucum for an internet break (ah, the new world), the mercury wasn't climbing, it was soaring. As we hunkered down for the final 3-4 hours to Santa Fe, things got a little dicey, since the animal contingent (have I mentioned Charlie Brown and Olivia?) were seeming a little withered and the Woo machine (the Crown Vic) was inching towards too-hot-under-the-hood. So we abandoned AC, swapped the pets into the more—ahem—moderne Tif and Troy-mobile and rolled down the windows. This was a welcome broiling, in my opinion—caravanning up and up, among the mesas, under big skies with a loud sun. And then just when this seemed like the new norm, storm clouds started boiling on the horizon. and we eventually sailed into a rattling bout of lightning and and miniature rainstorm thrashing. Jules said: "Iit was like the raindrops were being thrown down at us." Then, cool… then hwy 285 rolled out for us and we drove the final hour into Santa Fe under total glory: cloud littered skies, rainbows, and air, delicious air in the mid-70s.

that was some kind of welcome…