... leaving behind us the strange things in the sky, we wandered from roswell north to santa fe ... the verb "wandered" is rather broadly interpreted for this particular leg of our journey, since for the entire 192 miles of route 285 it seemed i barely nudged the wheel of the car only a few times, and the single real turn was into the parking lot of a middle-of-nowhere roadside diner for a lunch break ...
... in santa fe we visited meow wolf's "house of eternal return" ... in what used to be a bowling alley, it's a most complexly convoluted maze filled with both art and great mystery ... how do i describe a place in which you enter a refrigerator, close the door behind you, then turn to exit into a completely different environment ...
... "three's a crowd," they say, but when it's adrien-to-the-third i think the expression is better stated "three's a riot" ...
... we made a little pilgrimage to the loretto chapel so that with our own eyes we could view the "mysterious staircase" ... adrien wasn't all that pleased with me when i said i saw nothing particularly "mysterious" in its design and construction ... a bit of research, turns out i'm not alone in my opinion ... still, in a most beautiful gothic chapel the staircase was a fantistic example of both art and architecture in wood ...
... still on our quest for a certain native handicraft, we wandered the streets of santa fe ... along the way i snapped this picture, one i can find no way of explaining either why i took it or why i like it ... go figure ... (note: after a thousand miles, and seemingly a thousand stores, we finally found what we were looking for) ...
... in colorado we visited the royal gorge bridge ... i'd heard about this fabulous span when i was a kid, but it was only upon crossing it that i learned it was actually built as a tourist attraction ... 955 feet from the decking to the arkansas river below, from 1929-2001 it was highest bridge in the world ... we found the view spectacular, enough that we saved our money by not trying out the bungee-cord slingshot swing that shoots daring thrill-seekers out over the abyss ... (note: no one knows where the word "bungee" comes from) ...
... in my mind, suspension spans are perhaps the most sublime of all bridges ...
... adrien wanted to take me to see "the garden of the gods" ... i know she wasn't pleased when after a quick glance at google earth i sorta-kinda-a-tiny-bit expressed that i wasn't all that impressed ... luckily she's not one to give in, since it is, indeed, a most fascinating place ... (it turned out that the search term had taken me to a nearby golf course with the same name ... i believe the correct technical term for this is, "big duh, dad") ...
... riding the cog railway up pikes peak we enjoyed the company of kevin and arika ... from the gulf coast of texas, kevin had never seen more than a dusting of snow, and their flight to denver had been his first plane ride ... 14,000 feet up the mountain, with sections from which the view was completely blocked as we traveled within deep channels cut through massive snow banks, i'm pretty sure kevin's nose wore down a little spot in the window pane ...
... i suppose a "watch for falling rocks" sign would be foolish ...
... i thought a selfie was appropriate for the highest i've ever walked ...
... 2,000 miles, so much fun, so many wonderful things we saw and did ... i'd say, "a perfect wanderabout" ... adrien, however, might qualify it with, "nah, dad, you lose one point for leaving the garmen gps at home" ... which, of course, is the whole point of wanderabouts—if they must be scored it's a "pass/fail" scale should be applied ... you wander you pass, the only way you can fail is if you don't take the first step ...
"It is good to have an end to journey toward;
but is is the journey that matters, in the end."
URSULA K. Le GUIN