Guaje Canyon Trail and Jemez Springs

Morning in Jemez Springs, about 45 minutes earlier than we thought it was because the clock was wrong. You may remember Jemez Springs from my … oh, that's right, I never actually did write up an entry about my staycation.

One afternoon was spent in Jemez Springs, doing a little hiking on some trails, and staying at Jemez Mountain Inn. The proprietor there was telling me about San Antonio Hot Springs, the most impressive in the area, and an alternate way of getting there by hiking, rather than driving in.

So we both managed to get a day off — together — yesterday. Made arrangements to stay at the Inn that evening, and thought we might try out San Antonio. Turns out that the special route I heard about, but didn't really remember the details of, is not posted anywhere online. But as it was shaping up yesterday, gray and cloudy (and humid!), hot springs didn't seem worth it. So with a late start out of Santa Fe (finally having gotten to Clafoutis for breakfast), we decided to head up Pajarito to the Guaje Canyon Trail.

Up in the mountains, definitely yet another environment; a lot of the trail showed the damage from the Cerro Grande fire years back, but it was a pretty trail, tree-lined and lush, with a steady-but-manageable uphill grade. (Click for larger.)

   

There's a loop (for cross-country skiing in the winter), but also a trail off that keeps going straight out. We headed up that for a while to an overlook into the Caldera.



Flies were swarming, it was getting late, and we could see thunderclouds moving in, so rather than push on to the canyon, we headed back to the car. Out about three hours, probably 5 or so miles.

Passed through some light rain on the drive into Jemez Springs, which turned pretty steady by the time we checked in. A nice dinner at Laughing Lizard; my plan to enjoy the Inn's patio was pretty much shot because of the rain, but we contented ourselves sitting on the little porch, watching the hummingbirds.



A delicious breakfast at Deb's Deli & Mercantile; plans to stop by Jemez State Monument, and then head to the 7000 BC table at the Warehouse 508 Block Party in Albuquerque.

bathroom painting

So, the master bathroom, then. Perhaps you remember seeing this photo (from the real estate listing) posted last May:



Or this one, from last summer (the mirrors did not convey):



As you can see, the listing photo doesn't do the godawful ORANGE!-ness justice — that thing is ORANGE! Or was ORANGE! We decided to see if we couldn't get the master bathroom shower to where we could actually use it (we've been using the shower in the other bathroom since we moved in) until we save up some more $$ to renovate it. (Decided that getting the roof insulated would be a better use of our home-improvement funds.)

Our inspector was dubious about the usability of the shower, due to some cracking in the walls, and peeling paint. On further exploration, I found that the shower enclosure was done with a cement-type finish, applied like plaster to the walls, then painted over. The cracks were only in the cement coat, not thru to whatever wallboard was under. I figured we could scrape/sand/strip off any flaking paint, fill the cracks, prime, then re-paint (in a non-ORANGE! color). Thus giving us new, clean, de-groadilated shower walls, at least for a year or so, or until we finally get to renovating.

I know, I know, painted shower walls: weird, right? But that's what they were before. I think they were peeling because (as I discovered during my scraping/sanding/stripping), there was no primer between the original cement surface and the ORANGE paint. Oy.

Anyway, here's where I started last Friday. I got rid of the non-closing, gagtacular, brass-finish shower door last summer. Aaaaagh... so... ORANGE!!!! musn't... black... out...



And this is what the walls looked like under the paint. Note the presence of already-spackled cracks under the paint:



Primer coat:



Aaaaahhhhh... I feel better already. When we do renovate, everything I painted (or that butted up to where I painted), will either be tiled over, repainted, or removed, so I didn't have to worry much about edging neatness.



The paint was Behr "White Clay" which was a pretty darn close match to the non-ORANGE! hard-finish plaster walls in the bathroom. Semi-gloss finish.



Here's what it looks like now.



The white makes such a huge difference. The blue tile on the shower floor looks so much brighter now. If I squint and ignore the ORANGE!-painted cement floor and countertop, all that lovely white and blue tile almost looks like Santorini.

Next: mirrors, some hooks, and a cheapie interim shower door, or maybe a shower curtain hung from a rod in the "T" cut-out ziggurat-shape steps.

chair fabric!

Thanks to everyone who weighed in on the chairs. We, of course decided to go with choice D - none of the above:



Bram wanted something more "atomic"-looking, (His grandmother's kitchen still has its ORIGINAL salmon-with-white-and-gray-boomerang-pattern formica, and he's always loved that kind of stuff.) but I still wanted something botanical. After poking around some more, I found the one above. Called "Agapantha," it's botanical enough for me and retro enough for Bram, so there you go.

Fourth of July Hike, 2008 Edition

Like last year, the plan for the first part of the Fourth was just to get outside. Didn't feel like ranging far, so headed up into the mountains to the Chamisa Trail. We'd done that hike before on a major holiday, and, as it turns out, I think I was kind of conflating that trail with another.

The past couple weeks, every afternoon it's been getting gray and windy and stormy-looking, but there hasn't been much in the way of precipitation. At least in town. Apparently, the mountains and east have gotten fairly consistent rain. We were out in the morning, and figured we'd beat anything that was coming; in any event, the trail offers a couple options for a shorter route.

The clouds rolled in, and there was thunder, but it still didn't seem too threatening. And the cloud cover was welcome.



Trail goes up, pretty steeply at first, into the woods. It kind of ends, about an hour up, at the intersection of several trails. We'd previously done the down and back that leads to a nice field, but looking at the sky, were wondering if that was the best idea.



Then we ran across one of my co-workers and his dogs. Sat on a log and visited for a while. And then all decided to head back to the trailhead, via the lower route that gets more meadow-y.



It did wind up raining early in the afternoon — even here in town. Nothing to compare to the half-hour hail and drenching we got yesterday, but still.

But it was clear enough by dinner time to grill some burgers. After dark, we got out the ladder and climbed up onto the roof to see if we could catch any fireworks, but the trees were blocking the city's display at the high school. We saw a few unofficial ones, but got back down when it started to rain a bit more. Next year, we'll try going up to the ridge by the dog park.

Update: Turns out that wasn't the town's fireworks we were barely seeing through the trees; those wound up starting later.

happy 4th!

at Albertsons today:


u can haz frwrx iz bhind dex kthxbai

Also, free sparklers with every purchase!