Miscellaneous ponderings and wanderings

I have been remiss in posting lately.  I had a wonderful trip home to visit family and friends in South Carolina.  I tried to time it so that I could see the beautiful fall colors.  But, alas, the colors this year weren't as lovely as usual.  Still, it was great to be home - to see trees and grass and the mountains.  One of my goals was to get some mountain apples fresh from an orchard.  There are no orchards within three hours of Albuquerque that I've been able to find.  And I'm used to having access the bounty of fresh picked apples and apple cider in the fall.  So my friends and I set off to the NC mountains near Asheville to find an orchard.  We aimed for Hendersonville, and ended up in Bat Cave, NC.  Got some great Mutsu apples from Justus Orchards.  We stopped in for a look around - it's really the end of apple season here.  I discovered that a bad frost in the spring had killed off a lot of the apple harvest this year. That's the kind of thing you don't learn in a grocery store!!  So I gorged myself on cider and apple doughnuts, apple pie, apple bread and apples, apples, apples!!  I managed to purchase a half bushel to bring home with me on the airplane.  And let me tell you, they are seriously heavy in a back pack.  But it has been so worth it to have fresh, mountain apples!  Nothing like it in the world!  And a little taste of home out in the high desert.

Coming back from vacation is always tough.  So this past week or so has been really super busy at work and personally.  I did manage to spend an afternoon carving pumpkins with my mentee for Halloween though....

And this weekend has been filled with hunting for a rental house.  But I took some time out to take a hike with a new friend of mine.  We went to the Elena Gallegos open space.  I hadn't been there yet.  It's only 15 minutes from my apartment.  So I've no excuse at all.  And I intend on going back quite often.  It was simply beautiful.  We walked up the mountain side of the Sandias for about an hour - decided that was enough for the day and headed back downhill.  But seeing the trees and the blue sky and the rock covered mountain side - it just made for a wonderful, peaceful day.  My friend is native american.  He says the Sandias are a sacred place to the Navajo - that there is strong energy in the mountains.  Many Natives come there to pray.  He says the strong energy can disorient you very easily there and get you lost.  And that because it is a sacred place, the natives believe that you shouldn't eat there or disturb things.  We kept an eye out for bears, but didn't see any.  He said that he used to bring his kids there and they would howl like coyotes and get the real coyotes howling with them!

The open space is a 640 acre park supporting a pinon/juniper habitat.  Coyote, bear, cougar and hawks are among the wildlife that can sometimes be seen there.  Elena Gallegos was one of the original Spanish colonists that settled this area.  She obtained a land grant sometime around 1712 for this area.  It's absolutely beautiful up there.  I could spend hours just watching the blue sky through the trees.

This is definitely a must return to space.  As often as I can.  Although the recent time change will probably limit that to weekends until spring.  Ah well.... lots to do the next two months.  Holiday celebrations will soon abound and I am determined to make a few more of the Luminarias.
Jules