No post last night, because I was tired and disgruntled, slightly.
We spent yesterday in Taos - M got up and took the truck in for service and rented a car. I took another dip in the fantastic indoor pool - got to squeeze all the utility out of the hotel room, doncha know, like a coupla rubes set loose at a Best Western for the first time - Look thar Pa, they gots water coming right out the sink!
We visited the Fechin house and art museum, which I picked out a tourist guide because it was a home built by a Russian artist in New Mexico; I thought the blend might be interesting, and it was. Beautiful woodwork, and local art & history.
Went out Taos Pueblo and stopped on the way at an Indian cafe (hey, they use the word "Indian" in Indian country - I have not seen a single reference to Native Americans, except in OUR conversation.) The pueblo is supposedly an active living community, but neither one of us thought it was - looked like perhaps those dwellings are mostly used for ceremonial occupancy, and to run the little shops selling a variety of crafts. No electricity or running water are permitted, and the pueblo is as it has apparently been for 1000 years. I would guess the families live in town, and use their pueblo homes on feast days; there is casino money here, and I think the lives are more improved than the Navajo towns we visited. It is a bit odd to walk and gawk through someone else's homes - tried to think of where I could find people who might be interested to pay to walk though my condominium complex. I would let them take my photo for $5, even.
One shop sign advertised "Real Indian Stuff." Tell me that's not tongue in cheek.
We picked up Dapple, all ready to go with new clean plugs, and she ran better than she ever has, out of Taos and headed for Ojo Caliente. Of course, just to keep us from being complacent, and to remind us that there is a third entity on this trip, she refused to start after we got gas and had to have her choke monkeyed with; and as we were driving around Ojo Caliente, did that stumbling I'm-not-going-to-run thing again.
So although we are in a spectacular hot springs campground where I could easily stay a week if it weren't full of man-eating mosquitos and huge ants, I was discouraged last night. M says to take heart, that we'll go on and be fine, but last night I had fantasies of ditching the truck in long-term parking at an airport and driving an Avis car for the rest of the way. This morning? Well, there's coffee, and not too many mosquitos, and we will see. We'll see.
