sand in the craw and cake in the afternoon

we got back last wednesday from a fabulous trip to new mexico. we stayed with brittney’s friend kirk, whose family owns a cabin in the mountains of ruidoso. and by “cabin” i mean super beautiful, large, wonderfully furnished comfortable manufactured home. as kirk calls it, “the double-wide in the sky.” we spent five days out there.

saturday we flew to albuquerque and met kirk at the airport. we spent several hours in the city, getting lunch and shopping. we found this really amazing paper store that had nothing but hand-silkscreened japanese paper. dallas has nothing like this place. we bought so much paper that we had to fed-ex it home. then we got into the Land Yacht (kirk’s ford f-350 giant pickup truck) and made the 2-1/2 hour drive down to ruidoso.

sunday we got up early, had breakfast at the alto cafe, and then went to the snow tubing range, where we spent 3-1/2 hours flinging ourselves headfirst down a mountain on little inner tubes. it was so much fun. we were all incredibly sore the next day. sunday evening we watched the academy awards, made fun of beyoncé, and ate crackers and cheese for dinner.

monday we drove down to carlsbad caverns. it was a really really long drive (about four hours each way)… perhaps a drive not quite worth it. doc and i have been to the caverns before, but wanted to see them again. they were really nifty, of course, but we missed by 10 minutes getting to walk down the natural entrance. we had to use the elevator instead.

tuesday we went out to white sands, where we slid down the sand dunes on some plastic snow discs. the temperature was probably in the low 60s (quite a difference from the 110+ degrees when doc and i visited in june). we slid down the hills a bunch of times, tumbled head over heels a lot, got sand in our craw, laid out in the sunshine on the brilliant white sands, and enjoyed the complete and utter silence, save for the sound of the stealth fighters taking off from the nearby white sands missile range.

on wednesday we had to come home. kirk is so much fun — he’s very sweet, generous, and laughs a lot. plus, he likes to eat… a lot! he gets “fussy” (as he puts it) if he doesn’t get his snacks. we stopped a couple times at this really great place called caliche’s for ice cream. we had cake in the middle of the afternoon, too!