Teddy Rooseveldt's Big Hole in the Ground: Grand Canyon National Park

La Fiesta: Santa Fe, NM

Having felt the heat of the Texas sun, and having enjoyed the splendor and ease of the Omni's in both Houston and Austin, we three travelers decided to bypass the single night of camping Palo Duro State Park (a little south of Amarillo) and take a more direct route to the Santa Fe, stopping for a brief sleep in Clovis, (a little west of Muleshoe...) New Mexico.
We rose fairly early for the jaunty trip through somewhat pretty scrubland north, making good time on a desert-windswept two-lane passing small hamlets and Native pueblos (edified with more double-wides than adobe).

"Whoever designed Santa Fe must have been drunk, and riding backwards on a mule." Will Rogers' poke at the circutous, similarly-named alleys and round-about strips called streets came to mind as we wound our way off the highway and into downtown Santa Fe. A brief check-in with the Hotel Santa Fe (majority owned by a local tribe who know style and panache), and then we worked our way to the High Road to Taos, a scenic route north that leads ultimately to Taos Pueblo, with smaller, familial pueblos along the way, like the village of Chimayo.











Chimayo is centered around the Santuario de Chimayo, famed for the healing El Posito (holy hole of sand) in the chapel's oldest wing. Built in the early 1800's as a Spanish Catholic church for the local farmers and converted natives, the sanctuary now acts as the end point for the most walked pilgrimage in the United States. Tens of thousands of believers walk to the church, many seeming to leave their crutches and oxygen tubes behind, cured by the sands of Chimayo.







We met Em's Uncle Chris and Aunt Caralee (camping in the Southwest for several weeks and serendipitously in the Santa Fe area the same time as us) in Chimayo, where they were staying that night. We decided to meet up at the plaza de Santa Fe the next day for lunch, art museums and the native vendors who line along the sidewalk.









We enjoyed the day's festivities, as well as a jaunt to the Institute of American Indian Art, as a modern, cponceptual art gallery called SITE Santa Fe, about as different as two art galleries can be.



The four of us (Moose kindly waited in the hotel room with I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry on the HBO to keep him happy) dined in one of Santa Fe's oldest restaurants, El Farol. in an old adobe home. One can tell the authenticity of an adobe dwelling by the sheer thickness of the mud walls; the doorways at El Farol were framed by smoothed plaster over bricks at least 10 inches thick. Tapas, concieved and flavored with the mixed heritage of traditional Spain and New Mexico, with sangria and a sugared fig dessert, was the perfect finishing meal to our brief foray into the Southwest.

We awoke early the next day for our long-ish drive to the Grand Canyon.

Driving Through Goat Country: West Texas Pictorial

Why Austin is so F-ing Cool!

Staying at the Omni Downtown really gives Austin, and Texas for that matter, some perspective; The 20-story glass Austin Centre houses both the Omni- a lavish hotel and conference center- as well as offices for city workers, financial planners and other white-collar movers and shakers, but amidst the busy suits and polished hotel staff, below the marble columns and modern glassworks, sits a little plaque explaining the history of that site. There, in 1839, the residence of the President of the Republic of Texas was built, only to burn to the ground several years later. Next the first residence of the Governor of the state of Texas was built there, only to be replaced a short time later with a more opulent mansion further out of the growing town. Now, glass walls shining in the hot Texan sun, heads of state and celebrities stay in the air-conditioned, fashionably decorated suites, most passing the plaque and unaware of the site's history.
Texas, Austin in particular, always throws one for a loop with its quirkiness, while at the same time enchanting with southern charm and easy, good times.

Our first day was spent at the town lake, a large body of water that effectively splits the town in half. A long bike n hike trail circles the lake and its several bridges (including Congress St. bridge, home to the largest bat colony in the US) lend Austin a jovial, active feel as runners and dog owners take in the sights and relax in the cooling evenings.
Moose, however, found little enjoyment as he was once again thrust into the midst of the dog park and Andy's vain attempts to get him to swim. He much preferred having his picture taken with personal hero, Stevie Ray Vaughn.


We enjoyed all that famous 6th St. had to offer- live music, exciting food, lots and lots of Lone Star (that great Texas lager) for two days, enjoying the Whole Food's landmark store, tasty homemade barbeque at Lambert's, an Austin institution, and Chuy's, a Tex-Mex mecca.
Alas, having traded for two more day's at Casa de Los Dutch in Florida, we had to depart this wonderful city al too soon, heading through infamous west Texas.

FLA to Austin, TEX via Houston

Gustave, the Teutonic storm that bore down on the Gulf Coast, was not on our minds when we decided to grace the Dutch household with our presence for several extra days. The morning we left (ok, so it was the afternoon) we were bound for Mobile, Alabama, right smack-dab in the middle the hurricane's projected path. Mobile, not exactly a vacation destination, had our requirements for a stop-over night: 1) a Subway 2)free HBO 3)a middling-to-decently clean bed.
We awoke 14 minutes after 4am, right as all hell broke loose and Souther coastal residents took to the roads northward. Any other time, driving Interstate 10 would have taken maybe 7 hours from industrial Mobile to Uber-industrial Houston- with that route closed to westbound traffic from where we were, we instead wove our way north along backroads, inching east across Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana for 14 hours, through Podunk towns, piney villages and odd, economically depressed hamlets barely worth the cement and rebar it took to make them.
Finally, having crossed into Texas and turned south through Jasper (about as nice as its reputation may have you believe), we arrived in Houston in the evening in time to meet up with part of Andy's Texas clan, the Boones.
Mike (Andy's Granny's son) and his wife Susan, their daughter Allison and her husband Homer, Mike's brother John and his wife Katherine (totting young Sprague), Susan's mom and brother, and John's college friend Ted all welcomed us with a feast fit for a royal court. We ate and laughed, talking with the other young Boone gal Jessica in Chile via internet videoconferencing, enjoying the comfort that family always engenders.
We retired to the Omni (a resplendent business hotel in the Heart of the Energy Corridor of Houston) for a nice night's rest before hauling to Austin, our Texas haven, in the morning.

Susan, Mike, Moose n Em.

Andy n Allison.

Lil' Sprague.

Valrico, FL (Somewhat near Tampa, for all y'all)

This may be a somewhat disappointing posting for some, who are expecting Carl Hiaasen-like, Everglades-tinged notes on the muggy wilderness bordered by wild, crazy Florida cities like Miami. If you, gentle reader, are expecting that sort of Americana weirdness, please pick up Hiaasen's new book (his books-on-tape have kept us sane on this trip) and close this internet connection.
Those who seek to follow our experience, bear with our brief respite from exploration and experimentation of our broad country, and indulge with us in the sloth of home-life.

We stopped for lunch at the home of Shannon, Emily's earliest childhood friend from Florida, in Jacksonville, windy and hot with the departing storms. We hung out, Em, Moose and I, with Shannon, baby Tyler, dogs Holly (Doberman) and Martini (Mini Pinscher), for several hours before we three traveled south to the outskirts of Tampa to Casa de las Dutches.
Our seven nights there were a blur of "that's-what-she-said" jokes, raiding Steve's beer-fridge in the garage, and a combination of Rachel n Susan's cookin (Em's mom and little sister, respectively), with a lil' Tropic Thunder, Gameworks (like Scandia with beer) and sleeping til noon mixed in.
Emily was very happy to see her friends Joy and Scott (along with little Cameron), Jen and Brian (with little Avery), Kim and two her wonderful kids Jessie and Lily, Michelle and Adam Musial, and later in the trip, Jill and Ben Freeman (who will be coming out west in October for the Nike Women's Marathon!)
Andy's favorite part was the bbq and pool party for his 25th birthday, complete with squirt guns and diving rings, as well as a cookie-cake!