Bright & Early

Can you tell it was a little windy yesterday?

Another mostly driving day.  Headed out bright and early. Okay - he was the bright, I was only the early.  Because - seriously - he woke me up this morning, all chipper and cheerful, and I was more "Whaffu?" and then "What the...what TIME is it?"  and he went and looked at his phone, and I don't care HOW bright and sunny and lovely it was, it was five-thirty in the morning.  Can I repeat that? FIVE THIRTY.  And by the time I had wrapped my brain around that stunning piece of information, I was too awake to go back to sleep, so we had leisurely coffee and blogging and packing and were STILL on the road by eight-thirty.

Consolation:  I have been getting plenty of guilt mileage out of THAT.  Can you go get my bag out of the car please?*  Because five-thirty.  I want to stop at the kitsch souvenir stand, and we're going to do that, because five-thirty.

So yeah, we stopped at the Sparkling Restroom Trading Post.  Cardboard Indians! Totem poles! Cement teepees!  Giant buffalo! Covered wagons! Giant plaster dinosaurs!  No, even better - giant plaster dinos EATING EACH OTHER!  Dino-GORE!

Then we just drove and drove and drove.  We took a brief pause to reconnoiter through Gallup, where we will stay next week, and found by chance a lovely coffee shop in Grants (Grant?)  where the waitress laughed at John's, "Do you know what you want, dear, or should I just order verrrry slowly?" (She asked us how long we'd been married. I said we weren't, and used a term for what we were that I don't think she'd heard before - she was pretty young.)

But speaking of lunch, why have I never heard of the miracle that is New Mexico's Hatch Chile Green Sauce?  Dear sweet God in heaven, this stuff is amazing.  I had it last night at the Mexican place recommended by the clerk, and again today at lunch (well, John ordered it for his food, but I ate most of it, because five-thirty.) I am going to consume as much of it as humanly possible while I am here, and if I can smuggle a few gallons home, so much the better.

And this afternoon we arrived in Corrales, at my cousin Steve's place.  Thus ending the first portion of the tour - having seen Relics such as ancient meteor craters, wigwams, petroglyphs, and plaster dinosaurs. We're now into the Relatives portion.  I will write some more about my cousin tomorrow, if he doesn't throw me out for doing it, but enough tonight to say that his home is beautiful and he is generously housing us for a couple of days.  Spent some time sitting outside, watching his horses munch their dinners and watching all the little rabbits hop through the property.  Tomorrow: horse pictures!

One last comment on wildlife here - the crows in Arizona are as big as chickens, scream like pterodactyls, and are totally without fear.  And John doesn't like them.

This is not a crow. This is a pterosaur from the Meteor Crater

Museum. But I think the lineage is obvious.

* I think it's only fair to note that John carries the baggage all the time, in spite of the fact that I believe if you pack it you ought to schlep it your own damn self.  But he's chivalrous like that. ;)