New Mexico Adventures

Oh, why, um, hullo.

weird things happen in the in betweens. Some things are changing, but mostly, things are not. The spring semester in Ft Collins has concluded, which means that change is a-comin'. There will soon be parking space downtown, less foottraffic in the intersections, and the town is as a whole much, much quieter. It's really the best time of the year.

All that said, not a whole lot has been going on since we last talked. This weekend, though, Liz and I split paths and headed in opposite directions. She, to the mitten motherland to watch the last Hillman Boy graduate high school, and I southwardly to celebrate Memorial Day weekend with friends and family. As I am the only one currently writing this, you will get the latter perspective now...

I convinced Zachary to join me in our venture, as his wife had also left him for the weekend to photograph a wedding in San Jose. Dropping liz off at the airport, we continued down I-25, and eventually found ourselves in Tres Piedras NM, just beyond the Colorado border. It was late, the ground was spongy, and we quickly set up camp and went to bed. The morning brought more mist and moderate temperatures. Dylan joked that we weren't in New Mexico at all, but had hit a portal near Alamosa and we were actually camping in Sqaumish.

The morning brought on again off again showers of mist, and the grand climbing day had melted into a hike around the rocks, taking note of all of the good looking (albeit soaked) granite routes that we had no chance at climbing. A lunch back at camp resulted in the concensus being departing for Santa Fe was the best course of action, and before too long we found ourselves at the Santa Fe Brewing company, toasting our failed adventure.


The next am we departed the Kuhn's residence before 9 hunting for another chance at a day of climbing in the Diablo Canyon North of town. The forecast was for more showers, but when we arrived to the empty, vast wall the rain didn't seem imminent enough to deter us from flaking ropes and equipping harnesses. We climbed until nearly 1 pm, completeing numerous routes between the 8 party members and all agreeing that while we were eventually chased off by rain, the day had been more kind to us than we were expecting.

On the way back to the car, two gals on their own way back to the parking area advised us to check out what was around the corner in the center of the canyon, because it would "make our weekend". Not that i don't usually trust strangers (i don't) or like prolonging my time out in the rain (also a no) we couldn't help but looked. What we found turned out to be the very last thing we were expecting - a rig of wheels, solar panels and red linen flapping in the wind dispensing ice cream.

Really!


The gent had been there for a couple days, and explained that he was filiming a documentary of his travels with his contraption. The rig powered a freezer containing popsicles and a computer that allowed people to post entries to the project's log that would eventually find it's way online. We thanked him for the frozen treats and turned back to the car, debating what it was about the human spirit that causes grown men to sleep in the desert and dispense desserts.

The second commercial stop of the trip was at the 2nd St. Brewery, and it also did not dissapoint. Games and driving remained, and eventually Zach and I found ourselves back home with reality to face, but a single day already knocked off the work week. Sometimes - sometimes - the gods can be kind.


There is a flickr pool of everyone's photos living over here, with just my shots living here. Dylan's write up of the weekend is over here, while Kate and Mark's take is over here with their shots from the weekend here. (actually, I will update this with links when such posts exist. I assume they will.) All i needed was liz in the picture to truly make the weekend the perfect way to kick off the summer, but, we shall leave that event to next weekend, i suppose.