Winter 2022/2023

My son Todd and his wife Rachel visited us from Las Vegas over the New Year's holidays.

 

February- 10-12 - Susan and I went to Taos to celebrate our birthdays. We stayed at the Casa Benavides Inn on Kit Carson Road so that we could walk everywhere around town. We had a dinner at Lambert's and visited the Harwood Museum of Art and the E.L. Blumenschein Home & Museum. We are especially interested in the art of the Taos Society of Artists.

Casa Benavides Inn

Harwood Museum of Art	E.L. Blumenschein Home & Museum

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Spring /2023

We went to Madrid and Cerrillos on March 19th to take advantage of the nice weather between snow storms. Wound up eating pizza at Beer Creek Brewery in San Marcos.

"The Hollar", Madrid, N.M.

 

We spent the first week of May visiting Susan's sister Marcy in Berkeley, CA. We also went to their house in Villa Grande on the Russian River and took drives to the coast where we saw where the Russian River flows into the Pacific Ocean and to old Russian Fort Ross.

Berkeley view

 

Russian River meets the Ocean	old Russian Ft. Ross

 

 

 

On May 25th we took a drive to Las Vegas, NM. Went to the Castenada Hotel for lunch. They are now open for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

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Summer /2023

Susan and I went to Las Vegas, NM again on July 2 to the Fiestas de Las Vegas festivities on the plaza. We walked around the plaza looking at the food and merchadise trucks. Many locals there enjoying the music while sitting in lawn chairs. We danced to a couple of Mexican songs then were caught in a teriffic monsoon downpour with small hail. We both left there soaking wet and went to the Castenada Hotel for lunch before driving home still a litte damp.

I spent all morning on July 8th putting up jars. Seven pints of kimchi, six pints of sourkraut and eight 1/2 pints of apricot jam from our apricot tree.

The kimchi and the sourkraut had been fermenting for three weeks in special crocks.

In mid-July we spent the weekend in Taos. We stayed at the Casa Benavides Inn on Kit Carson Road. From there it is an easy walk to downtown!

We went to the Kit Carson Park and were amazed at the Taos Art Museum and Fechin House. We also found the grave of Kit Carson and his family members.

We drove up to the Taos Ski Valley and enjoyed the cool weather and the scenery as well as ate at the Farmhouse Cafe.

The Bavarian Restaurant- Taos Ski Valley	Farmhouse Cafe garden

 

In late August I met my two friends from Texas, Doug and Jim for a "Real Man Tour." We had gone on several in the past, but not for the last seven years. We first flew to Bozeman, Montana. The next day we drove to Cody, Wyoming where we went to the Buffalo Bill Center of the West and to the Cowboy Rodeo in the evening. The next day we went to the Old Trail Town, Buffalo Bill Dam and drove back to Bozeman through Yellowstone National Park. A short but exciting trip!

 

Three Real Men	Ken and steam

 

Chief Joseph Highway	Buffalo Bill Museum

 

Old Trail Town	Water Falls on the Yelowstone River

 

Blood Geyser	Blue Pool

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Fall/2023

In the middle of September Susan and I took our long awaited vacation to the Northwest. We first went to Berkeley to see her sister then flew to Seattle. We stayed downtown at the Grand Hyatt Hotel so that we would be within walking distance of many of the sights that we wanted to see. We went to the famous Pike Place Market and took a ferry to Bainbridge Island for the afternoon. The next day we took the monorail to the Space Needle and the Chihuly Garden glass exhibit. The next day we went to the Seattle Arboretum and the Japanese Gardens. The next day after doing a laundry we pepared to take the Victoria Clipper ferry the next morning to Victoria, Canada.

We arrived in Victoria and went to the Abigail's Hotel. The following days we walked around downtown, the waterfront, went to the Butchart Gardens, Chinatown and rode a doubledecker bus all around the city. We stayed on the waterfront for the last several days at the Hotel Grand Pacific on the 8th floor looking over a fablous view of the harbor. The only bad part of the trip was that we contracted an upper respiratory infection (non-Covid) that we had to deal with during the trip beginning in Seattle.

Space Needle	Chihuly Glass Exhibit

 

Pike Place Market	Japanese Garden

 

Garden Angel

 

Victoria BC Statehouse & Port	Victoria Butchart Gardens

 

Victoria Chinatown	Victoria Clipper ferry

 

On October 22 we drove to see the cottonwood tree leaves turning golden. Some of the best ever this year! We drove first to Abiquiu then to Ojo Caliente where we had lunch at the resort hotel.

Overlooking the Chama River

 

On Thanksgiving Day we had our neighbors Mike & Dan and Christine & Paul over for dinner. Everyone pitched in and we had quite a spread!

December 8th-11th Susan and I went to Taos mainly to go to the art museums there. We stayed at our favorite inn, Casa Benavides Inn on Kit Carson Road. During our stay we went to three museums. We had a two hour personal tour of the Couse-Sharp Historic Site and toured the Harwood Museum of Art and the Millicent Rogers Museum. Learned so much by being there!

On December 22 Susan and I took Barb Goede to Santa Fe Botanical Garden's first La Luz de la Noches to see the garden lit up.

On Christmas Day we went to our neighbor's, Mike and Dan's for dinner. Christine and Paul were there too.