I was in New Mexico for a week, visiting friends. Spent time in familiar homes and on people's patios and in people's yards. Drove familiar streets, and ate in familiar restaurants. Was feted with a wonderful party. Sat watching prairie dogs pop out of holes in Amelia White Park up near Museum Hill, and watched pavilions go up for the International Folk Art Market, and fell in love with Santa Fe's South Capitol neighborhood, and almost understood the real charm of what has been perverted into rich people's Style.
But overall we were having trouble finding anyplace we could GO because there were fires everywhere and the national forests were all under restriction, and hikers and sitters-by-rivers alike were locked out of their refuges. So it was particularly absurd and pleasing for RF and me to find ourselves listening to a bullfrog on the far side of a natural pond in the Leonora Curtin Wetland Preserve, south of town on the I5 frontage road by La Cienega, surrounded by the droughty droughty landscape, the air filled with smoke. There was water, and plants, and waterbirds.
From New Mexico went on to Florida, for family stuff. Then home again. Time flies when you're not feeling communicative.
