This is probably going to be our Christmas photo...taken out beside our house...just can't beat the view here!



Leonard


Butch

Here we go with another Truchas sunset:



Our next door neighbors, Remo and Leanna moved into a bigger place about 6 miles away. They had a huge housewarming party, and there were a number of musicians there. I didn't take a guitar, but the fiddle player had brought his old Yamaha, and I borrowed it.





We took a day and went off wandering towards Jemez State Park. We didn't make it to the park before closing time, but we did see Battleship Rock, Soda Dam and the Valles Caldera.


Here's Battleship Rock:



Nothing really shows the true Caldera...it's so hard to show 176 square miles, 89,000 acres in a photo. A caldera is where a volcano blew it's top.



Me and Ray on top of the Soda Dam:



Here's another shot of the Soda Dam with the river coming through it.

My first ever nephew was born October 20 at 2:15....my sister named him William Phillip, and we'll be calling him Will. It's really exciting. He's my sister, Niki's first child. Matter of fact, she's the first of any of the siblings to have a child. She's 24. I was beginning to think that there weren't going to be any grandchildren at all. Sandy and I are set that we aren't going to have any at all, and Bubba's wife April isn't sure that they're going to be able to have any. Anyway, I wanted to make a public welcome for him!

Truchas Peaks sunset...taken by Craig from the deck of our new house

Well folks, we closed on the house sale on Aug. 18 at 2pm. The original plan called for me to pick up the moving truck on the morning of the closing, early, but then I realized that I needed the money from the sale to do that. So, I moved the truck pickup to the evening. Everything was in storage...we worked for a couple of days prior to get the house all scrubbed up and pristine for the new owner. We actually worked into the night on the 17th, and then the morning of the 18th, we took any remaining things to storage, and went and rented a hotel room for the night, mainly as a place to stash the animals while everything
happened. The closing ran fairly predictably - took a little longer than I had thought it would, but that was ok. Then we went to get the Penske truck...and found out that they had sent it to the Buford location instead of the Cumming location, and it was too late in the day to pick it up that day. So, had to go to Buford the next morning for the truck. I went to the airport and rented a minivan to haul the animals. To make the long story short...it took most of the day to load the moving truck and the heat was grueling. Classic August Georgia heat and humidity. By evening, all of us were nearly having a heat stroke, but we got it done. We rented a 26 foot truck, and I kept saying that we had to pack it tightly or we wouldn't have enough room, even though Craig thought we had plenty of room. In the end, we had to leave behind a chest of drawers, my desk and a couple of bookcases. Not a huge big deal in itself, but I was disappointed...after all, it was my desk... Still...we got out of there, and made it west of Birmingham the first day, and to Oklahoma City the second day. The third day we made it into Santa Fe. Travel was slow...we had the moving truck loaded to the gills (so to speak) and it was a little underpowered. Oh well.
Truchas is a traditional spanish village located on a ridge at 8,000 feet. It's part of a land grant from the king of Spain in the 1500's, and most of the families here are descendents of the original 29 families.


Evening rainbow in Truchas

Truchas is a small town of around 1,000 people. There are at least 20 art galleries here, and one gas pump. That's right, one gas pump. There is a general store, in the most general of senses. It sells a few sodas, and a lot of liquor - packaged by the 1/2 pint! Not much else, though. If you need anything, you have to go to Española 17 miles away.


Another sunset...with snow on the peaks.

We're about halfway between Santa Fe and Taos. It's a bit of a mind-warp...I used to have to think "I'd like to go to Taos. Maybe next vacation." Now, I think, "I think I'll go to Taos...for lunch!" We go to both Taos and Santa Fe several times a week. Santa Fe has all the shopping that I'm accustomed to, and I just like the atmosphere in Taos.





Church at Picurìs Pueblo


Santuario de Chimayò

We soon found out that DSL doesn't run up the moutain to our house, so we had to wait and order a satellite dish for internet. I've been lost without internet...I'd wonder about something, and not have any way of looking it up. So happy to be back online.



We've made a few trips out exploring...to Chama to see the narrow-gauge steam train come in...over through the Valle Caldera...through the Jemez mountains.










A Truchas traffic jam...these horses are basically wild and roam free. They're unshod.