Behind-the-Scenes Tour

Rocque invited us over for a birthday barbecue yesterday. Great time, and we got a tour of the secret laboratory where The Independent Get Down originates …



Even though we're home, been extending the vacation with two parties yesterday, breakfast out with Jamie today, and generally ignoring everything around the house that needs to get done.

Phoenix Again For The First Time

(Was well onto the next trip already while writing this.)

Spent Memorial Day weekend in Phoenix for the annual comic con — for the first time since we started exhibiting, the show was actually in Phoenix, at the convention center downtown, not out in Mesa. Flew out on Friday with Jamie, met Pete and Paul who drove in the night before and Chuck, who drove through the night.

Mon and Paul dashed off to IKEA, the rest of us got to the business of selling. Went well, but the whole con wasn't as good for us as in past years — our location, right in front of the line for the photo booth certainly didn't help, but wasn't the whole reason. Luckily, we had some good neighbors — David and Jolene on one side, John and Melissa on the other — to help pass the time.

Friday night, we finally, after years of hanging out at the con but not after, went out with Doc and Jodey. Who led us all to Hanny's, a '40s-era department store, converted to a bar/restaurant. Our party of scruffy convention-goers didn't quite fit the stylish decor, but was treated really well, seated along the reclining (as Monica discovered) banquette. The food was contemporary takes on standards, terrific and reasonable. The drinks were creative and quality; I certainly didn't regret trying the Maple Hook Manhattan so now I'm experimenting with making my own.

  

Jodey, a historian, explained the history of the building, which opened during the last gasp of downtown retail. For years, it was a practice site for the fire department, the destruction from then still evident in the elevator shaft. The setting, the people, the dining and drink, it was all a real treat.



Saturday dragged, the sales were there, but it felt rough. A high point was running across Kate Sherron; couldn't resist the Anubis and Abernathy illustration — and then she was good enough to create an amazing pinup for the next volume of RBS.

 

That night, it was determined we needed to return to Alice Cooperstown and dragged our neighbors Dave and Jolene off with us. The Suns were still in the playoffs, the game was at the arena right across the street. We figured that since it was well underway that we figured it'd be emptied out — though didn't count on the crowds gathered to watch on TV. At the hostess stand, no idea when there'd be table space — but if we didn't care about watching there was a nice big table out on the patio. And so passed several more enjoyable hours.

More photos than you need to see, mostly of the costumes that passed by, at the 7000 BC Flickr stream.

An uneventful flight and trip back on Sunday. Nice having the next day to recover from it all, so eased back into the week. To celebrate their first-in-the-city special dispensation to allow dogs in a food establishment, C.G. Higgins had a little celebration that we stopped by. And then got James away from his computer for a little bit to kick off grilling season with him and Shadow.




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So, there's one trip. We're back from the past week at Chaco, Mesa Verde, Durango, and Ojo Caliente. We'll see about posting stories and photos, but we're kind of just continuing our vacation today — got two birthday barbecues to attend, so hopefully the gray clouds and wind won't stick around …

In Mesa Verde …

… yesterday, at the cliff dwellings. In Durango now, winding down the northwestern NM/southwestern Colorado trip. Post about Phoenix last weekend is mostly drafted, but without photos. We'll see what I can manage to get posted from the recent travels and goings-on when we return.

Reserved for Out-of-State Visitors

From, by heroic effort, Emi y Steffen; distilled by a friend of theirs.

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Phoenix Comicon last weekend. Attempting to put the post together, but feeling a little head cold-y in advance of our trip next week.

Five Years

Today, the five-year anniversary of our arrival into Santa Fe. How are we celebrating? With chips, comics, The Independent Get Down and margaritas. And later, sandwiches and some cable show on Netflix (tonight, last of season 3 of Mad Men). Like we celebrate every Friday.

Looking back at the blog — now a few months older than five years — there was much, much more activity. This was started to track our trip out here, then moved on to documenting our adventures once we arrived. There was a lot going on, a lot of excitement. The nature of life is, though, that tapers off.

Yeah, there hasn't been a lot of posting recently. We're still busy, but it's maybe not as notable — last weekend, another Santa Fe Challenge (assisting, refereeing, coaching, instead of fencing), the weekend before an afternoon of geekery at Free Comic Book Day; all the while, Monica's been doing a bunch of works on the blogs she maintains and getting the garden going, documented at Santa Fe Garden.

There'll be more posts, but they'll probably be even less frequent than they have been. And probably be about the dog anyway. There's less discovery and adventure, but know that we're still enjoying it out here. To be honest, some of the sheen's gone off living in Santa Fe. The reality of living here's long since set in, but still ain't no place we'd rather be. Been lucky enough to know some great people on the way.

The beautiful daily reminder is that mountain over us to the east, still snow-capped like it was when we pulled into town.

(The picture's actually from the day before, when we crossed the border.)