Day Four

I got up at 8:15 and went for a run along the creek and up to the cemetery. I saw my uncle’s new headstone, which was very nice and very appropriate. Then I followed a dirt road I’d never taken before, past an adobe house and a stable of horses. Many of the dirt roads, including the cemetery road had been so covered in deep blowing sand that it was hard to run. When I got back onto the asphalt, I was surprised at how quick I was with no change in effort.

After breakfast we noticed a cottontail in the garden outside the kitchen window. She wasn’t eating any of the vegetables, but was very diligently digging a hole and pushing the dirt out of the way with her front paws. We watched for a very long time and eventually Dan and I went outside and sat on the garden wall to watch. She wasn’t afraid of us in the least and as soon as her hole was deep enough she began gathering dry grass and leaves to take down there.

Much to our surprise, after the bunny spent all morning setting up her little nest, she filled it back in with dirt and did it so neatly that unless you’d seen the hole she made, you’d never know she’d dug it. I guess she’s not ready to have baby bunnies yet but wants to have the nest ready. At any rate, the cutest part was when she was done with all her hard work and flopped down on her belly underneath a tomato plant. It was 1:00 and she’d been hard at work since 9:00!

So that was the day’s first entertainment on the Bosque property. The next was a sandstorm that blew in. Winds started gusting and great yellow clouds obscured the Manzano mountains. Then the wind started whipping around from the other direction as well, and now we could no longer see the mesas, either. We were all loaded up and ready to head out to Santa Fe, but that was now impossible. So we settled in to wait it out.

Once the dust storm had cleared, Dan and I headed out for Santa Fe. I would’ve been content to hang out for another night, get rested up, spend the day writing and napping, but Dan once lived just outside of Santa Fe and feels a certain connection to it. Since everything we’d done on our vacation thus far had been my idea, we went to Santa Fe.

We got checked into our hotel and headed in to Old Town to browse the shops. I bought a fabulous hand-dyed tiered cotton skirt with silver spangles for only $28. It would’ve easily gone for $100 at a mall in Houston.

Then we stumbled upon a street festival that was a lot of fun. It reminded us of a very small-scale Westheimer Art Festival, back before it became commercial and n o fun. We saw all kinds of characters there—aging hippy artists, people on stilts, young kids in dreads and velvet, or torn jeans, or long flowing robes… really, anything you wanted to wear, any color you chose to paint your hair or face, it was all good.

After we’d made the rounds of the festival we went and had dinner at La Fonda. I had a really amazing vegetarian plate. Dan wanted to go for ice cream after dinner, so we found an ice cream place and sat on the plaza for awhile and watched the show as tourists, locals and young hipsters all hung out.

It was a nice, relaxing sort of day and we were even back at our room early enough for me to read a little news and do some writing!

The plan for tomorrow is breakfast on the plaza and hiking in the mountains, with maybe some camping.