Up on the Rio Grande

Today we had our regular trip up to the Rio Grande gorge, just south of Taos, so Mom could pick her sage to roll into smudge sticks (which she sells at the fairs at a very good profit, i.e. 500% if you count the gas).

In my Sundance posts from years past, I've attached shots of Mom picking sage, and these are always pretty much the same, so I'll skip that. However, you will want to look at a very nice shot of me up to my belly in the Rio, which I enjoyed very much. (There was also a fly fisherman and a couple of Canada Geese hanging around as I bathed.)

After that, I had a number of good rolls in the Rio grass and mud, of which this is a picture of one.

We couldn't drive through Madrid for the last time this visit without taking a picture of me in front of Maggie's Cafe, where scenes from the movie Wild Hogs (starring John Travolta) were shot. Some of you may not even remember Wild Hogs, or might never have seen it, and our guess is that the days of Maggie's Cafe -- which is not now a 'cafe' but a Wild Hogs souvenir shop -- are numbered.

We're up tomorrow at 4:00 in the morning to fly back to New Hampshire, so this will be the end of my Sundance blog for April, 2011. Hasta luego! Blog ya the next time.

Sundance

Crazy Place!

Today we had a nice day, meeting up with our friends Rosie and Michael and their dog Otto, my friend from a few days ago. We drove down the Turquoise Trail to a hardware store, where Dad bought statue-mounting hardware and Mom bought planting soil. There was a flea market across the street and everybody bought something: Mike, a pair of cowboy boots; Mom, needle nose pliers and a ring sizer; Dad, a pick mattock; and Rosie, too many things to be listed.

Then we went up the Sandia Highway to the Tinker Town Museum, which is too crazy to be described. Apparently inside there are hundreds upon hundreds of wood carvings by this guy. They don't allow dogs. But even outside, it was quite wild.

We continued up toward Sandia Peak. The humans had lunch at a picnic area, and us dogs had some snacks too, and we also met some other friendly dogs. The cold winds were all overhead, but our picnic table was in the sun and warm.

Up at the top, it was cold and windy, and Dad said we were at 11,000 feet, with Albuquerque 6000 feet below us.

We were glad to get home and hang out at the Casita. We're starting to get ready to go home, but that's OK. I miss the cats.

Crazy Place!

Projects

Today was a stay at home and do projects day. This isn't my favorite kind of day because as you know I am Heroic Action Dog. However, when Mom was putting polyurethane on the picnic table I did get to run across the top, which left some good sticky pawprints.

Dad and our friend Thomas the excavator spent the morning creating a concrete base for the new sculpture, so I got to bark at the backhoe quite a bit. The base doesn't look like much now, but they put about 700 pounds of concrete into the hole, and at that they would not have had enough concrete if a friend of Thomas who lives nearby hadn't been available to drive up here with an additional four bags. I could say something about planning ahead, but I won't.

I pulled out Dad's shoes, and played with the recyclables container, while Mom worked on jewelry and Dad finished putting up the windmill. A big afternoon wind had come up by then and the windmill spun like crazy and whipped from side to side. It was instantly very cool!

Mom has this idea to smash all these overweight dishes that she and Dad for some reason bought at a yard sale and later hated (I hated them from the beginning) and then use all the broken pieces to decorate the base of the windmill. We'll see what comes of that project.

At the end of the afternoon we drove to Lamy, a little village where Amtrak stops, and walked around the railroad tracks. It was very pretty and there were lots of good smells. I snoozed in the car while Mom and Dad had supper at Harry's Roadhouse Cafe. Fortunately, they didn't bring any leftovers home in the car (I always find that very hard).

High Mountains

We had a very nice road-trip today, going over to the other side of the Rio Grande and up into the Jemez Mountains (which, when we're back home in our casita, we can look out at every day from our front window).

One great thing we saw was the Soda Dam. This happens on the Jemez River. Dad read the sign which says that this dam is a build-up of calcium carbonate (whatever that is) from a spring behind it.

I also got a chance to get my feet and nose wet in the Jemez River itself. It's a pretty nice big river. We also visited a hot springs just up the ridge from the river; people were bathing in it, so we didn't take pictures. (Dad says that back in the 1960's, people bathed naked in these pools ... but that's before I was born ...)

Mom and I also had a good run through the Ponderosa Pine forest (we spent a lot of the day above 8500 feet, during which Mom and I were a little dizzy and silly from the altitude).

Then this afternoon we came back home, and Mom made jewelry, and Dad fought with the winds and rocks to get the windmill set in place for tomorrow's concrete pouring. They went out to dinner. I was happy to sleep in the car.

A Day in Santa Fe

No strenuous hikes today, thank goodness! We spent a lot of the day in Santa Fe. Mom and Dad went to a desert garden store; Mom bought sunflower seeds and Dad bought grass seed for the big dirt patch out front where Thomas dug the septic system.

I got to visit the prairie dog village at the Jackalope store and just about flipped out to see the little guys. They ignored me and everybody else and just went on eating.

We also visited the Santa Fe plaza where I posed for animal crackers. I also met this young girl short-haired dachshund. She was pretty neat, although she wasn't as interested in me as I would have liked.

The big happening today has been the wind. It is absolutely howling, and it's cold! You can barely see the mountains across the Rio Grande valley because of the dust.

Yesterday we bought a lawn&garden windmill and this afternoon Dad put it together, but he couldn't put it together because of the wind. Go figure!

A High Point

We left the El Rancho Hotel this morning and reversed our route back down south in order to hike El Morro (also known as "Inscription Rock"). 150 years ago people traveling across the country came to this oasis and wrote their names on the rock. (Actually Indians inscribed on the rock centuries before that.)

We had a nice hike up to the top of El Morro. Mom and I rested in the shade for a bit.

Then we were up at the top for a spectacular view. We also had a very nice look back at Inscription Rock from the top. Then we walked down and drove home for a mellow afternoon in the sunlight and breeze.

This Is What I Call Camping!

Well, as you can see, we're not really camping. This morning, Mom and Dad checked the weather in Zuni and saw that it was going to be 25 degrees tonight. Not wanting to spend the night shivering in our tent, we decided instead to stay at the El Rancho Hotel in Gallup.

This morning was mainly sleeping for me. I slept on the trip from our casita to Zuni, and then while Mom and Dad bought jewelry, and then on the trip to Gallup, and then when they shopped again. I woke up for lunch in a really nice little Gallup park with actual grass.

Then things got adventurous. We decided to go for a hike in Red Rocks State Park, just east of Gallup. We went up the Church Rock trail (shown). Then we lost the trail (I believe that makes us 0 for 2), then found it again. It involved climbing up steps cut into a cliff over a big deep canyon. I was fine with that -- the steps were spaced about right for a long miniature dachshund -- but Mom and Dad were not feeling too good about trying to get back down the steps again, and so decided to keep going forward, hoping to find a safer way down.

This took us over miles of sketchy trails along the edges of larger, deeper canyons. Then the trail started going UP again. Just when Mom and Dad were ready to give up (not sure what that would have meant at that point), the trail started going DOWN, and from then on it was soft dirt trails and a gentle trip down to the parking lot.

We did about 6 miles and were very dusty and thirsty. Now we're just stiff and probably going to sleep soon, missing probably the only opportunity this trip to watch TV.

Hanging Out

This was a day of hanging out. We drove up to Santa Fe and Mom and Dad did a lot of trivial shopping and I slept in the car a lot, which was fine after yesterday.

This afternoon we mainly hung around the house. Our buddy Thom came over to try to fix the kitchen sink, which hasn't worked well since we got here. He did his best but wasn't able to because the thing was so badly installed to begin with. Meantime I really enjoyed having the doors open and running in and out.

Mom and Dad had stopped at a gallery and fell in love with a sculpture and then this afternoon Dad decided to buy the thing and drove down again and brought it home. We're really excited to have it here.

We're heading down to Gallup tomorrow to buy some jewelry, then headed out to El Morro for camping. Unfortunately, we won't have any Internet access at El Morro, so you guys will have to skip a blog for a day.

I look forward to blogging with you soon.

Sundance

Hard Climbing

Well, we had quite an adventure today. We hiked Apache Canyon, which is about 15 miles southwest of Santa Fe. Of course, when you hike a canyon, you go DOWN first and then in the second half you go UP.

Apache Canyon was very very beautiful with a thick forest of pine trees (Mom says Pinon and Ponderosa and Blue Spruce). Down at the bottom was a beautiful little stream where we had lunch.

Then Dad, who had been reading the guidebook, mentioned that, regarding the trail back up (this was supposed to be a loop), the words in the book said one thing and the map in the book said a totally different thing. We didn't have any idea what to do.

Since it looked like a trail along the beautiful little stream, we followed that for quite a while, until all agreed that we had probably gone too far. So then we ended up bushwacking it up the steep ridge, having no idea where we were going but relying on Mom's and Dad's sense of direction.

We made it, found the road at the top. It was basically fine with me, standing only 4 inches off the ground, but Mom and Dad are quite a bit taller and were more nervous about falling over. It was a VERY steep ridge.

Mom and Dad stopped for chocolate cream pie on the way back and I spent a lot of the afternoon sleeping. After all, I covered six miles on legs that are only two inches long.

High Winds!!!

Man was it windy today! Dad said our roof was rattling. My fur was ruffing. Dust was everywhere.

We went into Santa Fe and walked to the Farmer's Market and the Flea Market, both indoors (thank goodness). Mom and Dad did a lot of boring shopping stops going down Cerillos Road while I got to stay in the car listening to the wind howl.

In the afternoon, Mom built rock walls and Dad put up a sun face on our shed. Then (thanks!) we went indoors and got to warm up and rest.

The best part of the day was visiting our friend Rosie and her dog Otto, down in Lone Butte. Otto is a great friendly dog and I look forward to spending more time with him.

Rosie has a really cool house full of windows which I spent a lot of time looking out of, other than the time I spent chewing on the cuffs of Rosie's slacks, which earned me a time out until we drove away.

Now we're back cosey in our casita and looking forward to a hiking day tomorrow.

It's Springtime in New Mexico!

We're back! At 3 a.m. we were waking up in New Hampshire, and at 3 p.m. we were driving up to our casita! I did a fair amount of whining at the different airports (especially when it got the attention and laughs of everybody around), but once we were in the air I just snoozed out.

Beautiful warm weather in Albuquerque. At the casita most things went smoothly except that the kitchen sink was spraying water all over the ceiling. Dad eventually got that temporarily fixed. Then he couldn't get the hot water heater going. He was looking a little frustrated ... but he figured it out eventually, and now we are all cozying in for a nice desert sleep.

As you can see by the second photo, I am feeling a little tuckered ... I am relaxing in the Cowboy Room.