Colorado to New Mexico Great Sand Dunes National Park Our second day on the dunes we were lucky, as locals said the wind had been unseasonably strong (evidently it blows a lot in the spring, but usually not so much in the summer); it calmed down substantially and we had a pleasant stroll through the water of Mather creek over to the sand dunes, put our shoes back on (to protect against hot sand), and began our climb up. Climbing a mountain of sand is tricky when it is steep. We walked across some ridges, but at a certain point we [View Full Entry]

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Dear Blogifiles, We are willing to bet that no one reading this has ever been to Elkhart, Kansas...right? And, on a whim of sorts, we ended up there to get to Cimarron Nat'l Grasslands. It was a bumpy 4 miles on a dirt road across prairie grassland, a few oil wells, windmills, cattle, sagebrush, and some tumbling tumbleweeds. When we finally arrived (after every cupboard being tossed into chaos and a few fillings missing) we were greeted with the most incredible sunset across this wide open sky of skies. There was nothing there except 2 pit toilets and a place to [View Full Entry]

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Tuesday. Driving to Taos, New Mexico. One can only have so much fun... so we decided to start the day off with the most mundane of activities. We did laundry. I suppose doing laundy in a laundromat in Colorado Springs is much more exciting than doing laundry at home, so it was still an adventure... in a way... We spent the day driving to Taos, NM. I must have said, "It's beautiful" every 30 minutes. It's so very different. The mountains took my breath away. It was amazing how far you could see. We got off the main highway onto a [View Full Entry]

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Conference location Nathan D. Bryant Alright, for those of you who are currently teachers, or those of you who are thinking of becoming teachers, or for those of you who have no idea what you want to do, you should consider international teaching. This entry is made possible due in great thanks to my future school. One of the many perks (and yes, I do mean many), is that I get paid conferences throughout the year. Paid means fee covered (for this one, $1000), travel covered and meals. Overall, the school is putting some n [View Full Entry]

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No the title of this blog is not about Eli's now very bushy and manly beard which now has to be regularly manscaped, it's about an actual Gorge! Eli has been OBSESSED with the Rio Grande gorge...for good reason, it is a breathtaking sight as I hope is evidenced by the pictures, but his infatuation has gotten a little out of hand. I do realize that the 1993 Missouri State Topographic Map Champion would find nooks and crannies of a geological nature fascinating, but with all the admiration Eli has been expressing for Mother Nature's curves, well I feel a [View Full Entry]

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Taos is a bit like Santa Fe but alot smaller and in my opinion not as pretty. Although it is more in the mountains so the surrounding scenery is pretty spectacular. The hostel was in a small town north of Taos called Arroya Seco. There was nothing there apart from a couple of small galleries and cafes. There was no public transport from here into Taos so seemingly hitchhiking is the only way around. No thank you! So the only thing I did here was go on a 3 hour hike up to a waterfall in The Sangra De Cristo [View Full Entry]

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We woke up early as Ed and I had the whole day to ourselves and didn’t really want to waste a moment of it. By 8am we were at breakfast at a local favorite, Michaels Kitchen; by 9am we were on the West Rim Trail of the Rio Grande Gorge. Ed went mountain biking and I went hiking. We both had a fabulous time. I got my walking meditation in and Ed got his rolling meditation in (although it was more like paying attention to the rocks in the path). There is not much I can say about it other than [View Full Entry]

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We are ready to leave Santa Fe by 9am and we headed up to Taos. Overall, I can see why folks like Santa Fe but we were ready to leave. We landed in Taos by 11am and checked into the Taos Valley RV Park which was better than Santa Fe but still not all that great. We knew we wouldn’t spend too much time there so it was okay but I am ready for a nice campground where you would want to hang out and other people do. My parents hotel, El Monte Sagado is fantastic; beautiful waterfalls, running water, an [View Full Entry]

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We were kind of happy and well rested and relaxed once we disembarked at LA, we had the very delightful surprise of being upgraded to First Class from Tahiti, the front row too - so the 10 hour flight flew by! Don’t ask how or why - it’s a long story! No matter how many road movies and Westerns we have seen, nothing could have prepared us for this amazing corner of South West USA, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and Colorado - huge open vistas of vermillion red buttes, mesas and canyons and never ending desert arid flatlands. We wanted to [View Full Entry]

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Closure--- Arriving into ABQ around 9:45pm (sans packs---do they personify our feelings of maybe not quite being ready to face reality??) In closing this blog out, we’ve been reflecting on some things we’d like to share with you. The now fading memory of all those big smiles on some of the poorest people in the world (Nepal is the 2nd poorest nation in the world—average annual income at $250). We hope that we’ve left them with an equally warm sense of graciousness they showed us. Deep reflections on life’s priorities when we come home to our fast paced Western [View Full Entry]

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