Kevin and Daryl’s excellent New Mexico Adventure part 2

When last we left our two adventurers, they were chugging along on a narrow gauge scenic railroad crisscrossing the New Mexico/Colorado border.  Thursday morning of the trip, brought a wonderful breakfast at the San Geronimo and then a quick load up of the car, and off to the Ojo Caliente Mineral Springs and Spa.

OK, I could have spent the entire trip here.  Forget the knitting.  We arrived in time for an 11:00am yoga class, I was told at the desk that the class was held in the yoga yurt.  I quickly found the yurt, across the parking lot, it isn’t hard to miss a yurt, and when I opened the door and entered I was surprised to find tables and students and what looked like a Navajo Weaving class.  One of the students approached me and told me the yoga class had moved to an adjacent building, but I was of course intrigued that I fell upon a weaving class.  Navajo weaver Pearl Sunrise was teaching a five day class in Navajo Weaving techniques, through the Taos Art School. Now I know what I want to do when I grow up, take weaving classes in a yurt at a mineral springs spa.  Could that be any closer to heaven?  I loved interacting with the weavers, we crossed paths at meals, and I was thrilled that the Taos Art School arranged something so spiritual in such a restful centering place.

My husband and I had scheduled massages, OMG…  We wandered in and out of all the different mineral pools, each featuring a different mineral content.  We sweated in the steam room and the sauna, and went back into the pools.  We even smeared ourselves and each other with mud, and baked until it was dry.  This was a seriously cool place to vacation.  Oh, and the yoga class was excellent!  After dark, my husband had booked a private pool, with a fireplace, and we bathed in the dark and watched the stars come out, one by one, until the entire night sky was filled with tiny points of twinkling light.  I don’t think I’ve every seen the Milky Way so vivid.  We certainly don’t get stars like that in New Jersey.

Friday we headed south, and met up with a river guide, and hopped onto a raft, in full protective gear, and had a wonderful trip down the Rio Grande, floating, drifting, and madly paddling through some class 2 and 3 white water rapids.  It was a blast.

We managed to make it to Bandelier National Monument before it closed to see the ruins of the Ancient Pueblo people’s cliff dwellings.  They were haunting, I felt like I was in a very sacred space, I wanted to whisper, and the cliffs whispered back.

Saturday we drove west of Albuquerque to see the Petroglyph National Monument.  OK, here’s the thing.  I have a couple of teens.  There are three of them around age 21 that live in my basement.  I can just picture them climbing up the cliffs, and hanging out smoking something having a few beers and scratching some graffiti on a bunch of rocks, like the old “Kilroy was here” or Class of 2010, or E.L loves J.G.  The ancient Puebloans had no written language.  They used symbols and story telling was an important part of their communication.  Can you just picture a bunch of teens around 1300, climbing up the basalt boulders and sitting around smoking something having the Puebloan equivalent of a Bud, and scratching images in the rocks?  I found it really hard not to snicker as I read signs talking about the sacred mysteries of the petroglyphs and their unknown meanings and the importance of the 20,000 documented images to the ancient Pueblo People.

We left the Petroglyph Monument and headed east to  Sandia Peak.  The world’s longest tram runs up to the peak, and there is some fantastic hiking and views that will take your breath away.  At the peak, you can see 11,000 square miles.  My husband did most of the hiking across the ridge.  I wandered through an inner trail through the woods, and decided that hiking at 10,600 feet with no water was not in my best interest, and turned back.  I happily hung out at the tram station and listened to my book on tape wishing I hadn’t left my knitting in the bag in the car at the base.  It was beautiful, and I know my husband had a wonderful hike, we could still send text messages, and that allowed me to keep abreast of his progress. About an hour and a half into his hike, he sent me this photo via text, swarms of hummingbirds, so tame they would land on your finger, allowed him to capture this amazing photograph.

And so we ended up Sunday morning at the Convention Center in Albuquerque to board a bus along with other Convergence attendees to head back to Santa Fe and a tour of Ghost Ranch.  Famed painter Georgia O’Keefe spent her summers at the ranch painting some of her most exquisite images, and the tour guide pointed out some of the subject matter along with reprints of some of her paintings.  It was all pretty spectacular.  We spent the night at the ranch, it is now a Presbyterian retreat center.  It has some wonderful hiking trails, and of course a labyrinth.  I want a labyrinth in my back yard.

On Tuesday, my wonderful husband volunteered himself to help move in the vendors for Convergence, he has had a lot of experience with this sort of thing, and was quickly named the “Dock Master”.  Meanwhile I boarded another bus to the Santa Fe opera house sitting next to my friend Ann from Michigan who is quite the expert at knitting socks, and she helped me work out the gusset so I could speed along on the foot of the sock.  By now the amazing views seem normal and I concentrated on my socks allowing those who haven’t already spent time in the state claim the window seats.

The bus first took us to three local handweavers’ studios, Jennifer Moore, James Koehler, and Rebecca Bluestone.  Of course their homes/studios were magazine perfect, in beautiful southwest architecture, with lovely gardens, and no clutter.  Each of the artists was most gracious, and welcoming, and shared some of their philosophy and creativity with us.  I was impressed by how focused each artist was in style and content of their work.  Their stashes represented only the materials they use for their very specific work, Jennifer owned two looms, Rebecca one, and James had a number of looms in his studio, but they were mostly for his numerous apprentice/students.  He demonstrated some tapestry techniques on his very large loom, it was big enough for the entire group to gather around.

The opera house was magnificent.  We did brisk walk thru’s of the costume and scene shops, the wig shop, and the accessories shop.  We spent a little more time in one of the climate controlled costume vaults. We found out that the more elaborate costumes were cleaned nightly with one part vodka to two parts water.  Who knew?  Of course no cameras were allowed, so I didn’t even bother to bring mine along.  I have to say, this is the first time I’ve ever been able to attend tours related to Convergence conferences, and these were really well planned with wonderful things to see, and my head was already exploding with ideas and inspiration and the conference hadn’t even started.

Stay tuned for my take on Convergence, it won’t have any photos, since photos aren’t allowed in any of the exhibits.