While it’s helpful to know that the journey began by air, the more interesting travels have waited for us to drive. I’m writing with Ann next to me at the wheel of a borrowed Audi station wagon, and we are rolling north of Moab, Utah. Today’s plan is to get somewhere north of Boise before we run out of steam.

The car belongs to our good friends Bill and Sharon who live in Placitas, New Mexico. They put us up as we arrived in Albuquerque. Our Piper airplane is now tied down at Double Eagle, where it will spend the rest of the summer. We dined at El Pinto, where the red and green chile pepper dishes are sublimely transcendent. This was New Mexican haute cuisine, not to be confused with paltry Tex-Mex hasheries. El Pinto has dozens of tables, many on open verandas adjoining the native gardens. The surrounding mountains were draped in rumbling storms, with a hint of distant rain scent mixing it up with our spicy dishes.

Bill and Sharon have a mountain retreat some 4 hours north and west of Placitas, in Pagosa Springs, Colorado, and they treated us to a night’s stay there after our day in Placitas. This cabin home is sited atop a wooded ridge facing the western slope of the Rocky Mountains. We saw a flock of wild turkeys, herds of deer and horses, rabbits, a humming bird, and a lizard. Sharon boiled up a spicy spaghetti and salad dinner. I think pasta is just about the best food to bond friendships. The next morning, we awoke to colorful hot air balloons soaring over the valley between us and the distant mountains.

We departed Pagosa Springs and made our way to Mesa Verda National Park. At the park we concentrated on seeing the Spruce Tree House archaeological ruins, and also hiking the Petroglyph loop trail. Mesa Verde is a much larger park than we had imagined, requiring a 20+ mile drive simply to get from the gate to our chosen destination within the park. And I re-discovered what a mile can be while hiking, compared to a flat mile jogged back home in Georgia. It took something close to three hours to hike along the canyon walls above Spruce Tree house, where smaller dwellings could be found high above the trail, and a wall of rock carvings some 700-800 years old can be studied.

From Mesa Verde we made our way to Moab, Utah, but those notes will wait until next time…

Onward!