Yesterday Leonore, Nancy and I toodled up to the
Sandia Peak Tramway for the view. All I can say is WOW!! Pictures yes, when I get home and reduce them. While you couldn't quite see the usual 100+ mile view from the 10,400 foot top of the mountain, you could see over 75 miles away , it was spectacular. It is the longest tramway of it's kind in the world and well worth the $17.50 to ride it up. Someday I'll come back and do some hiking about the top but not in hot weather, snakes and black bears would make it not the best choice plus I like cool weather better. We got some great photos and also saw a completely crazy couple of young men riding on TOP of the other tramcar. How do you get to do that we asked? You have to work here said the tramcar chick. Leonore and I agreed that with a safety harness hell yeah we would do it. Weather would have to be a might warmer though as it was around 35-39 at the top of the mountain but no wind so not bad. Where the two tramcars pass each other coming up and going down they are around 1000 feet above the ground or 7 seconds above the ground depending on how you look at it.
Then we headed to the
Albq. zoo and just had a great time taking photos and admiring the animals. They have some magnificent specimens there most noteworthy the white rhinos, cougars, lions, and polar bears, the most arrogant wicked trio of bald eagles too. They also have the very rare Mexican wolf, some snow leopards (including a BABY one that was way too cute) and a lot of really interesting birds. We got to watch a kookaboora eating his dinner ( a mouse) and go through a freeflight cage with a huge flock of budgies to get to the koalas. We didn't make it to the aquarium so entranced were we at the zoo but that was OK, I really loved it. A rather weird thing kept occuring at the zoo though ( and I suspect it was because Leonore and I must be innudated in the smell of large predatory canines). The really big predators all took distinct notice of us within moments of our arrival at their exhibit especially the lions and polar bears. The golden tamarind primate thingies all got agitated and ran over and postured and chattered at us, and the poor red river hog ran to its barn door and "squealed like a pig " with ear splitting decibels looking over its shoulder ever so often at us. It must have realized how much I love pork tenderloin and bacon. We even had a large ornamental crane go complete beserk posturing, flinging its wings and running back and forth in its enclosure. Note to self, wear clothes fresh out of a dryer and just step right out of a shower before you go to another zoo.
Today was Thanksgiving and what a feast, fire rubbed turkey breast, brown sugar coated baked ham, roasted medley potatoes (red,yellow,blue) a casserole made of corn, grits, green chilies and lots of cheese, a salad and for desert Leonore's son Anthony made neat little individual chocolate volcano cakes. I took a taste of everything, it was yummy, managed to exercise self control and not eat enough to regret it though. Leonore's sister and her husband came over and after dinner they played several rounds of rousing, competitive dominoes ( I know nothing about the game), and our friend Susan Van De Water was also here from TX for Thanksgiving so it was really very very fun for me, I greatly enjoyed spending time with all of them.
Now we are praying that the weather front doesn't dump any significant water in Roswell tomorrow or Saturday or those of use with two wheel drive (even frontwheel) will not be able to get our vehicles on the back dirt roads to the coursing event. I am just not willing to sink my Caravan up to its axle for this when I could just drive elsewhere and free course on BLM land. The forecast has improved though and the chance for rain has dropped from 30% to 10% with great temperatures only in the upper 50s. Great for the dogs. The entry is huge for a Thanksgiving one day breed event (12) so I sure hope that rain holds off. We are heading out earlyish tomorrow morning to maybe drive down and see the VLA and the Bosque del Apache NWR.
Oh yeah it snowed like mad here for about two hours, just enough for me to get cute pictures of
Vger in the snow. Tried for cute CJ photos but he would not cooperate.
The only thing to do when everyone is going crazy is what relaxes you which is painting for me. Here are four new ones. One I call Old Town Pueblo, Sorrel in the morning ( maybe I'll paint some more horses), and two on 5x 7 inch panels, Big Bend TX and sp
ring in NM
When I was younger I used to draw, paint, sketch, when I was in college I painted some with oils and a little with acrylics but that was 25 years ago when I laid down the brush and was too busy raising my son, going to school and working full time to even consider painting. Everytime I walk by art supplies I think hmmm I sure would like to try again. Finally, last week I was in Hobby Lobby picking up a frame for a piece I had someone else paint for me and they had all art supplies on sale 30% off. I grabbed some brushes, some acrylics, a palette, some canvas boards to work on and this is the first thing I've painted in over two decades. Last November (08) when I was in NM I drove down to the Bosque del Apache NWR and to get there you drive through San Antonio, NM a cute, quaint unincorporated little town just north of the NWR. I stopped and took a photo of their old depot it was appealing to me in the way that ghost town buildings are. There's a bit of artistic license in the background but I'm pretty happy with the effort. Next the depot in Magdalena, NM.
This first photo is looking West from the tramway, well looking West about 75 miles toward Arizona. the view may not quite translate to a photo reduced this much, so if you are in Albequerque area GO TO THE TRAMWAY it's worth the trip and the $$. The tower that we have just passed in the photo on the left is over 270 feet high and we are still looking West toward Arizona here. The tramway is the longest one of its kind in the world and was built by a Swiss company. The engineering 
specs on it are amazing. This next tower is the 2nd one and isn't nearly as high as the first. Look carefully at the third photo, yes there are PEOPLE ON TOP OF THAT TRAM. We were of course curious as to how one could rate that special seating arrangement and asked. You have to work there we were told. Okey doke.
a giant ratlike thing that only another rodent could possibly ever love. Blech. Lots of animals and I have pictures of most but won't overload the blog. We really enjoyed the polar bears too so thought I'd bring you one here.
Of course zoo photos would not be complete without photos of lions so 
here are my obligatory lions. The male was just an enormous black maned fellow who was very interested in those of us who smelled like big dogs. Probably wanted to show us what a real predator looked like. The 
North American version of a lion was terribly interested in us too, the zoo has 3 pretty spectacular cougars or maybe it was 4 or 5. Then there was this handsome and inquisitive zebra stallion at the zebra enclosure. Now there were also some really interesting birds to be seen there, these big white ones were African vultures. Kind of pretty actually for buzzards as we would call them around here. Then there was this really agitated and angry looking African stork that hopped and skipped around and beat on the other one in his cage. After we left the zoo we were pooped and went by the grocery store I believe so we could pick up last minute Thanksgiving stuff. Can you IMAGINE how crowded that store was?
arriving home at 4:15 PM, loading Kix and Vger for sure and then (To the right is what I really hope to see a good bit of! ie. Borzoi chasing rabbits) probably Beckett and Charo (and probably Umber who goes everywhere with me) for the long drive West. I expect I will arrive in the Little Rock area between midnight and 1 AM Sat morning. Name of the game will be drive drive drive, walk dogs when I get to either a hotel North of Little Rock ( there's a pretty nice motel 6 there I've stayed at or go to my friend Rebecca's, Rebecca is South of LR and more comfortable to stay with dogs by far so even though it adds time to my drive the next morning I think probably Bauxite is where I'm headed. This piece of the trip is about 30 miles to I40 for me then 288 miles West out of TN, then another 150 into Arkansas.
Last post tonight I promise. Keelo is one of those dogs that ends up with lots of photos of him everywhere. These two taken in New Mexico in February are kind of like, look at the mountains or look at him? So a compromise was struck and I took a bunch of photos of him looking all self stacked and show doggy ( well except for having his rabbit hunting ears on) all over the desert countryside. Here are a couple of my favorites. Above Keelo looking back at me like "Hey, are you getting all this?"
Last December I judged one of the ASFA trial in Northern Florida. LONG LONG drive for me around 600 miles, drove all night and made a minor wrong turn driving into the property so instead of immediately coming upon the field trial, instead I came upon this lovely little lake at sunrise. I parked on the dam and took this photo. If I ever have time again I'd love to paint it, I love these pastels.
dry a place as the one above is water logged. This is the Florida Mts of Southwestern NM with a storm brewing over them in early February of this year. Love all those yucca or century plants or whatthehellever it is they are called in the foreground. I'm sure there are a bunch of jacks in the foreground too but they are hiding.
get out and run, checked out Silver City, the Kneeling Nun, Santa Rita mine and then thought hey the Gila National Forest is between me and I25 let's just take that road. Follow the yellow brick road or I should say ease up and down the grades 
at 20 mph, pull over cool brakes, check out the overlooks, I think it was a 4 hour drive or so to make an hour and a half mileage wise at most. However, it was lovely. If you get to the Gila National Forest, pull out at Emory Pass. On a clear day you can see forever , and it was a clear day.
Caballo Reservoir named after the mountains that loom just east of it. I took this photo of it just before sundown. The bad thing was that shortly after this I decided I probably had really erred in judgement being 1500 plus miles from home 2 weeks after major surgery. Surely that deep painful burning that was making me double over the steering wheel could not be normal. I put my hand down over the spot fully expecting to pull it back covered with gore because my steri strips must have pulled loose and my guts were spilling out, or my internal stitches had pulled out and my intestines must be swinging around loose like a hangman's noose in my abdomen, or I was about to herniate loops and loops of small intestine through that little tiny hole in my skin. Nothing has ever hurt like that before, and nothing other than natural childbirth has ever hurt that much. I'm driving North finally on I25 thinking oh my God I've got to get as far as I can maybe I can get to I40 and drive back to Nashville and they can get my guts back in. Got as far North as Socorro hanging over the steering wheel, pulled into a motel6, paid the lady, drank a large amount of liquid hydrocodone and fell into bed clothes and all, was asleep by 8:30 PM and thankful of it but alas the pain woke me up at 3:40 the next morning. At that point I was ready to freak out, jumped up got back on the road but finally by 7 AM it had started to abate some which helped convince I was not dying but I had overdone it. I managed to get to my friend Leonore's house in Sandia Park, NM got the animals taken care of, called Vanderbilt and got reassured after describing the pain that it was neuropathy, sometimes happened but would go away with some time. Most importantly I wasn't dying. Just having someone with a medical degree tell me that made me feel better almost immediately.
View From the South
remains of many old soldiers, there she is again although many miles away, the Kneeling Nun also watches over this quiet memorial. I am seldom impressed with the Federal government for any reason, but finding this final resting place for the country's finest certainly impresses me. Whoever you are, "you done good".
look at this huge strip mine one and a half miles across and 1500 plus feet deep, and right across from it a sort of wonder, "The Kneeling Nun" a volcanic formation that can be seen 30 miles away in many directions and which resembles for all the world a kneeling woman. More on that later.
