Day Eight

Dan woke me up at 9:00 to tell me he was going into town to get the truck washed. I got up and went for a run but had to come back almost immediately because of my asthma. I hadn’t had an attack like that in a long while, but I think it was the cottonwoods around here causing problems for me. I remember having trouble with them as a kid in San Antonio, so I guess that was it. Anyway, I came home, took a couple hits off the inhaler and took one of my maintenance medications. Then I went back out to finish my run. I did 45 minutes, total, and while it wasn’t easy, I was glad I did it.

After my run I picked some mulberries and apricots. The apricots were particularly good and I enjoyed them with some yogurt for breakfast.

We hung around the house all morning, then my Uncle Mike dropped by around noon and we visited for a bit. Funny how folks just show up. When my grandmother died and my father inherited her house, he announced that everyone would still be just as welcome as they always had been. He wasn’t kidding! Relatives just wander over at all hours.

Mike took me and Dan up to the cemetery, then drove us around some of the properties along the river. After he dropped us back at the house, Dan and I drove into Belen for lunch, then came home and took a nap. What a lazy sort of day!

My father came back from Santa Fe in the evening and we had a light dinner. I finally got to do a little writing, too.

The plan is to head out in the morning for Silver City, where we hope to see the Gila cliff dwellings, the City of Rocks and maybe try to find the buried town of San Marcial along the way south. We’re thinking we’ll knock around southern New Mexico for a couple days, seeing what kinds of trouble we can get up to, then we’ll head back toward home. We’d like to make stops in El Paso to see one of my cousins, and in San Antonio to see an aunt and uncle. And then we’ll be home by the weekend. And a good thing. We miss our animals and we haven’t had Indian food in over a week now!