Summer Storms in NM

All these pics were taken tonight.... it was such a mind blowing, beautiful sky. We had a blast wandering around shooting pics and watching the show. I am so glad to be back in Santa Fe.

Getting Settled

Whew! It has been a wild change of pace for us over the past few weeks since we left Mendocino. Up there we were sort of floating around in a slow paced fog wearing layers of long sleeves and woolen sweaters and suddenly now we are stinking hot in the Santa Fe sun in 90 + degree temps, zipping back and forth across town in traffic and working on a real live schedule (something that we have not done in years.) I have been a little overwhelmed and a lot exhausted since we got here. But! Things are starting to shape up and settle down now.

My new job is great and I am so thrilled to have scored such a cool gig. I start my chocolatier training tomorrow. Up until now I have been learning the general ropes of the shop and just getting acclimated to the whole scene there. One bit of interesting news is that Billy is actually going to be helping out working one or two days a week cooking at the shop. He will be making the caramel, toffee and the pate (6 flavors of ganache style chocolate enrobed in wax for easy traveling and longevity.) He starts tomorrow training with Keith (one of the owners) on how to cook all these goodies up in a huge copper kettle. It will be funny to have him there at work with me. Rudy will benefit from this in that he gets to go spend the days we work together at the doggie day care which is right next door. The place is called Santa Fe Tails. It's a new business and they seem to be doing a great job so far. One of the best things about the place is that they have web cams set up so you can check in on your dog while they are there playing for the day. They also take each dog out for a walk at the railyard park across the street. Rudy had a blast the last time we dropped him off for the day although the dudes working there did mention that Rudy was a pistol and they could hardly even believe his energy levels. Yo. Tell me about it.

My biggest news to report is that as of August 1st we will be taking a break from the Airstream. Probably a long break other than occasional weekend trips. We just rented a little place right on Canyon Rd and will be moving in the first of next month. We are doing this because the RV parks in and around Santa Fe are just not aesthetically pleasing to me, they are almost as expensive as a casita rental and in the winter here we would freeze our ass off in the trailer. So we will be putting the old girl in storage for awhile. I guess I am ready for a change of living quarters since we have been in the AS for a solid year straight and on and off for almost three years now. Our new place is really sweet... it's not very big but it will suit our purposes quite well. And the location is as good as it gets. We can walk down Canyon Rd and into town in a matter of minutes. I can't wait to move in. Even though we have no furniture! It will be heaven to have a real live big bathroom (and tub) again.... and a full kitchen with counter space! I love our Airstream but variety is the spice of life baby. I am ready to live without wheels under my bed for a minute here.

So with all that said... on to the fun stuff. Yesterday we drove out to Abiquiu, one of my favorite places in the whole of the USA. We had the intention of spending the afternoon and early evening out on the lake in our kayak waiting to shoot photos at dusk. The weather had other plans for us unfortunately. We had only been in the lake for about 5 minutes when the storm clouds starting rolling in and the lightening started dancing across the horizon. Lightening in northern NM is nothing to fool around about.... especially out in the middle of a big assed flat lake. We paddled around a bit, pulled of to have a late lunch and then high tailed it back to the launch site before we got zapped. Also the wind was making paddling around a stupidly huge effort so it was best to give it up for the day. After we got the kayak secured back on the truck we cruised over to Ghost Ranch to shoot some pics.











Rudy was pissed that we did not let him out of the truck at Ghost Ranch but in light of the fact that the bubonic plague is on the loose in the flea population of the area we felt it best that his hairy little ass stayed put inside. The last thing we need is him sticking his snout in some rodent hole and bringing home a host of black plague party animals to roost in our bed sheets.

The next two weeks will entail a lot of cleaning, organizing and prep for moving along with training at work so bear with me if posting is light. I'll do my best to jump on and post some pics and a few stories as the days roll by.

Another Quickie Post

I am just gonna throw a photo post up here to appease anyone who drifts through for another day or two. I have really sucked this past two weeks about getting new stuff up on here. Sorry for that! Things are going great and we are still just so busy.

Here are a random string of pics from Santa Fe over the time since we arrived.....

My fave fireworks shot I grabbed out back of the RV park on the 4th....




Rudy and I on our sunset walk in the arroyo....



Billy and Rudy people watchin' downtown.....




Chelle on our lunch date at The Aztec Cafe...




A cool shot Billy grabbed per my request the other night while the sky was full of intense clouds...




Smiling Billy....


Swingin'....



Nice shot of the train down in the railyard station area....



I think we are headed out to Abiquiu this Saturday to kayak the lake and hang out. Should be fun and I love shooting pics out there. I promise to do a "getting caught up"post by Sunday.

Have a good Friday peeps....

Don't Give Up On Me...

I am still alive out here. Sorry posting has come to screeching halt. I have been consumed by business. Busy. Busy. Business-y, business. Get it? Got it? Good. I started a new job and we have been trying to get settled in here in Santa Fe.

What's my new job? Yo HO! Well, let me just TELL ya! I have been hired to be a chocolatier at The Chocolate Smith, Santa Fe. Anyone who knows me will immediately realize that yes, this is the right job for me. Now it would appear that in this lifetime not only will I be eating lots of chocolate ... but now I will also be making lots of it too. And let me tell this is totally legit chocolate. Check it OUT.

I am going to keep this post short because I am dog tired. I will post pics and more news tomorrow. I just wanted to throw it out there that I have not abandoned the blog!

Big Change of Scenery, Temperature and Altitude!

HEY! Sorry I straight up disappeared on y'all for a loooong stretch there. Things have been pretty much whacked for us for a few weeks. In a nut shell.... we made the tough decision to leave California and come back to New Mexico. California was not working for us at this moment in our lives.... and obviously we are not alone in saying that. California is not working for barely anyone who is inside the state lines at this point in time. California is a hot mess. The art scene in Carmel that Billy was striving to become a part of has pretty much tanked over the past year and the once interesting galleries are now one inch shy of selling paint by numbers of baby horses. It's not the time to be workin' that scene. Unless of course you are a paint by numbers pro who specializes in cute baby animals or ugly Tuscan landscape scenes overflowing with red flowers and water fountains. Yikes.

Besides the big move we just made I have been seriously ill with my thyroid situation. I am starting to get a handle on it again but it is going to be a slow process getting my body back on track. I will write more about that later in a separate post.

We left Mendocino and took the route through Sonoma and Napa. We stopped off at Bouchon for a farewell lunch and to grab one last box of macarons from their bakery. I am tellin' ya people.... the food there is stellar. It blows my brains out every time. Check out this cucumber salad....




I'm talking 'bout a smoked paprika infused creme fraiche with marcona almonds, green olives and juicy little sweet blanched tomatoes all piled up with the cucumber slices. It was fabulous. Billy had the mussels again and I had the gnocchi (again) but both were prepared differently than we had them before. The giant cone of salty fries that come with the mussels were the same though....



Those fries are dangerous. You can't stop eating them and they give you a TON of them.

From Napa Valley we booked it straight to our friend's ranch in Paradise Valley to stop off and say goodbye and then moved on over to Clarksburg to see Bill's family. We only stayed one night each place and then hit the road south and made it all the way to Needles on our first day. It was like a 12 hour day of travel and it suuuuuucked. Needles had kicked a high temp of 119 degrees that day and it still felt like the inside of an oven when we got there. Thankfully our campsite was on the Colorado River so we all went down for a twilight swim.






In that last shot I am The Colorado River Monster. Clearly. And yet somehow Billy is unfazed and Rudy is utterly distracted. Also... check my luxurious Mendocino Fog Tan. White as snow baby... white as snoooow.

The next day we got hung up in Flagstaff for 5 or 6 hours at the Camping World getting some repair work done on the trailer. We had a new vent fan dropped in to the space above our bed where the old vent cover had blown off... finally getting rid of the garbage bag and duct tape we had be gazing up at for over a month. We also had a new electrical plug installed because we were having problems with our connection and kept blowing our breaker. I love Flagstaff so it was kind of nice to spend the afternoon downtown while the trailer was getting fixed up.

We made Santa Fe the next day and boy are we STILL pooped from the drive. I am struggling with really bad altitude induced headaches.... yuck. So we have pretty much been laying low waiting to get acclimated. I am glad to be back home in Santa Fe... the drive in was spectacular as always. We passed through this storm coming up from Albuquerque.




The New Mexican sky never let's ya down. So there you have it... for now. I will try to get some more posting in this weekend once I can sit at the laptop for a bit longer without feeling like there is an angry gnome hammering away at my head with a pick ax. Ahhhhhhhhhh.......