Another nice day in New Mexico

Got off to a slower start today....but that does not mean that we were not productive.  Rick got up at 4:45am to drive Audrey to the airport....needless to say, Joan and I were in dreamland.

Rick went back to bed when he got back to the campground.   I tried to go back to sleep, but I had laundry on the brain.  I figured that this morning would be a good time to try and knock that out.  So the challenge was going to be....how to get the laundry out from under the bed where Rick was sleeping?  Rats....bad planning on putting our laundry under the bed.  Fortunately for me, he opened one eyelid and I grabbed the opportunity to ask him if he would mind lying more horizontal, so I could get under the bed!  Yes, some of the things about trailer life for which you do not plan!

Anyway, we stayed at the campground until 11:20am....and then we set off for Petroglyph National Monument, on the north side of Albuquerque.  It was pretty hot by the time we arrived, but we managed to complete the the 2+ mile hike in Rinconada Canyon, which has over 300 petroglyphs along the trail.  It was amazing to see all the petroglyphs (and sad to see the modern day graffiti next to some of these ancient drawings).  Joan was not too excited about hiking at the beginning of the hike, but once we started seeing the ancient drawings, she started to really get into it.  We finished the hike just in time......we had gotten every drop out of our water bottles!

After getting Joan sworn in (yet again) as a Junior Park Ranger, we headed off to Santa Fe.  As we got closer to Santa Fe, we saw smoke in the distance.  Initially, the cloud of smoke was small but it quickly grew.  We learned later that the fire started around 2:30 p.m. and had grown to several thousand acres by dinner time.  At last report, the fire was not yet under control.

After we got the trailer situated in a camp site with lots of shade in an old campground close to the center of Santa Fe, we headed for the Plaza in the heart of Santa Fe.  We walked around window shopping and gawking for about an hour before we decided to head back to the trailer for dinner.  It was such a nice evening, we had dinner outside on a picnic table under a cottonwood tree with a beautiful yellow breasted bird singing in the top of the tree.  As soon as we get Joan to bed, we are going back outside to enjoy the wonderful night air.