Sunday (Day 1)

So I got up this morning and had a very calm feeling about the day. I was all packed from the night before and only had to eat and put my face on -besides getting the last few odds and ends together. I finally got the courage to step on the scale to see how much weight I had put on during the holidays so I had a data point for when I come back from my trip. (124.8 lbs, very bad –although 2 lbs of that I’ve decided may be from the enormously delicious meatball sandwich I ate the night before with the justification that I would work it off over the next week) Mmmmmm, meatball sandwich. I love Frenchie’s.

Gareth left about half an hour before I did, as I enjoyed my grapefruit and yogurt for breakfast. He kissed my forehead and told me to have a good week. I told him I would. After he left I moved the luggage out of my room and continued with my breakfast.

Shannon was awesome and came to pick me up. She even patiently waited and occupied the dog while I decided to bring my CDs or not. (I seriously need to move them all onto my computer sometime). A few minutes later we were on our way!

I was actually called out by a friend from work who I stopped and chatted with on the way to my gate. As he wished me well on my trip, I noticed Gareth was sitting right there all astonished. Originally I had a great one-liner all ready for when he asked what I was doing there, but I forgot it and was just like, ‘hey, I’m going on my own vacation, blah, blah, blah, blah’. And then sat down in the row of seats adjacent to his. No real drama, so that was a relief. But boy was he surprised!

When I got to Albuquerque, my ride was waiting for me. In fact they were paging me on the loud speakers. I check in and got my bags. Gareth asked if I wanted to ride with him, I was like 'No, I've already booked one with the shuttle bus.' Then I asked when his family was getting there. He said he was trying to figure that out. I told him I would see him tomorrow at lessons and then went with my driver.

The ride between Albuquerque and Taos is one of my favorite because it is so incredibly beautiful. You have the mountains back in the distance, the hills and the Cibola National Forest are immediately outside the city. The freeway to Santa Fe rolls along creeping ever closer to the Taos mountains in the Sangre de Cristo range. To the west of Santa Fe you see the cliffs on the red rock plateau of Black Mesa. After the town of Espanola, the road starts to curve along the contours of the mountain, winding along side the seafoam green and gray river that is the Rio Grande in its infancy. The hills on the east side are still frosted with snow from the dump they got last week (16 inches!) while the west side is dry from the warm afternoon sun.


This continues until you reach the town of Taos from which you enter the mountains themselves. The road twists and turns, along a tributary to the Rio Grande that brings the snow melt from the mountains to the river. The snow increases and you really start to feel like you are going the a secret alpine village hidden among the tall pine timbers that populate the steeps around you. At the end of the road a tiny town emerges from the trees and you go down into the small valley. Looking up you see the enormous mountain that is the main ski area staring straight down at you like a sentinel guarding the city. At the base of the ski town all the mountains are surrounding you, watching, aging, breathing nature.

I love having a driver. In real life I would never drive (unless it was for fun in some sports car), otherwise a driver is the way to go. You get to focus on other things like the scenery or read your magazine or socialize safely. In the shuttle I met my first new friend Sandy. He is an older fellow who is tall and thin and around 60ish? He is originally from Chicago, but now makes his home in Florida. Sandy is an old school gentlemen -very nice manners, courteous, sociable, interesting to talk to, etc. He too is going to ski week at the Saint Bernard. I can tell his is a kindred spirit. (Can I use that phrase? Or is that too literary)

(more later, I have to go ski now)