Andy's Visit

Andy arranged to pass through town, returning (via San Francisco) from a week in Sydney and Melbourne and on his way to Phoenix. His flights were a bit delayed, but managed to retrieve him from the airport on Friday afternoon without too much incident. In remarkably good shape for having been on a plane for more than 16 hours, we took him to Whole Hog Cafe for some healing.

It had cooled over the past few days, and Friday brought some bouts of rain and hail — but there was snow on the ground (and the Throckmorton gauge) when we awoke Saturday morning.



Actually, Throckmorton's head doesn't give the whole story. There was about an inch of wet snow (not the usual powdery stuff) on the Golf when I set out to get donuts.

The night didn't end too late, but Saturday morning started late enough that Monica went off on her own for her guest radio gig. The show has always been pre-recorded, so we stayed at home and listened to them performing live, without a net. The show's host, Stacy, at the studio:



It was clearing, but still not an awful lot of fun out, so we headed up to Museum Hill for some indoor activities at the Musuem of Indian Arts and Culture and the Museum of International Folk Art.

Back to the apartment around sunset, and it had gotten a bit nicer, so we went out into the open space behind the complex to get a view of the mountains and wander outside a bit.





After dinner, we were over at Jett, Serena, and Will's for Serena's birthday party. We hung out there for a while, then came back home. And stayed up way, way late, catching up — when you only do it once a year, it can take a while.

Sunday's weather was more conducive to a little outdoor activity — still a bit cool, but beautiful, clear skies. We started out down by the Plaza, where we discovered that Santa Fe got one of these guys:



We'd planned on stopping by the Palace Print Shop, but it was closed because there was no electricity. Even though their printing requires no electricity.

So we drove on up the mountain, to the overlook just shy of the ski basin (where they claimed to have received 14" of snow over the past few days). Then back down to Aspen Vista for a little hike. No snow on the roads, on the trail it was wet and packed and made for a slower going. We were out for about 45 minutes and had then had to get back home to get Andy packed and off to the airport.







There was time to take him by the house that — just today — we closed on. Our realtor met us there so we could show it off. That's going to be consuming our lives for the next few weeks, so there will be much, much more here about it.

Dinner at Gruet Grille, then to the airport to see Andy off.