Well, not really. But we did pass through Gallup, Flagstaff, Kingman and Albequerque and we are in Santa Fe -- land of ancient pueblos, many latinos of old European heritage and native americans from all over this area. I love it here -- even though it has been bone-chillingly cold (-20 last night!!!). We've had some time to check out the local museums, filled with Indian artifacts dating back to pre-Columbian cultures and local southwestern historical information. But I was hugely dissappointed to find out that the Georgia O'Keefe museum was closed while changing exhibits. I'm going to have to come back for a day while we're in Taos I think.
We've been having our share of bumps on the road since arriving here. I guess it was harder for us all to adjust to being back together again after my four day absence. Kell was back in his tyrannical mood, I was still moping from my visit to my Mom's house and Miles was trying to gear up for meetings with colleagues at the Santa Fe Institute and elsewhere around here. It's amazing how difficult it can be to handle life's regular ups and downs when you're confined to such a small space. Maybe it's the cold, but suffice it to say that I was actually considering the wife-swap solicitation we got last month.
Yes, that's right. Last month, we got an e-mail through our website from a producer from the reality TV series "Wife Swap". For those who are uninitiated in this particular brand of bad reality TV, it is a show that takes two families and switches the mothers. The first week, you live with your new "family" and observe and then the second week, you impose your new rules and regime to see if you can make the situation better -- or just impose your own brand of madness on them I guess. Anyway, they were looking for a travelling family to spice things up a bit. I'm not quite sure how they intended to pull this off technically. I mean, where do you put a newly installed "wife" in a 8x31 foot trailer with only two beds? On the floor? Not to mention how on earth they'd be able to fit a camera crew in here. What hell! And I'm sure my punishment with the other family would be equally tortuous. I guess that's why they offer the participating family $20k to complete the two weeks of hell.
Of course, we begged off politely citing our inability to meet their requirements -- at least one child 7 or older. But I sometimes wonder ....
We've had our first real estate outing. We got a few listings to look at from a local broker and took a little tour of some of the outlying areas of Santa Fe. Beautiful, but very rural and run down in a lot of ways. I have to keep reminding myself that the west often combines that mixture of beauty and unkemptness. We'll look at some other towns tomorrow.
I'll have more to report soon, but I wanted to take this chance to upload a few more photos from the Grand Canyon, some from Santa Fe and a link to some ski videos of Kell. Sorry about the Grand Canyon pics, I still just can't get over it!
Try these links and let me know if they don't work!
Kell getting ready for his first day on the slopes:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7245202985277554865
Kell Skiing:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2812452320838496794
Enjoy!