Yesterday I

1. Signed up for Russian 1^[1].
2. Got tickets to go to Canberra next weekend, which is dead this time of year^[2].
3. Went to a really nice Spanish restaurant for dinner and ate many delicious things. They had pretty good margaritas. I took some pictures with my phone, but I think the memory card in my phone got erased or something. I need to start photographing for real again :/
4. Saw an interesting play about the Spinifex people. It was deeply personal but not at all bitter.

I’m sorry I left myself logged in to IM for like two days but had been so busy that I didn’t sit in front of my home computer for that whole time. Sorry if you sent me messages I wasn’t ignoring you! Promise! I will endeavour to log myself out next time, and actually be in front of my computer when it says that I am.

Kim at work told me that I could never do or say anything to surprise her. At first this made me angry, but now I don’t really care. It occurred to me that nothing she has done so far has been terribly surprising. meh.

I had an epiphany this morning about how to reorganise the provisioning code. I was glad that I had left work early yesterday rather than agonising over it, because apparently all I needed to was to get a good night’s sleep and a fresh perspective. I realise though, that I love my job, but in some ways it isn’t as challenging as when I was working at The Company, especially that period when I was working on parallel abstraction. It’s hard to compare with accomplishing the impossible.

Today we had lunch at the pub, which was fun, except they forgot our order and then pretended that they hadn’t. There is this girl who is always flirting with Andrew. I can’t remember her name.

I’m looking forward to special visitors in March.

1. This will actually be my second Russian course, for some reason they start with “beginners” and then go on to 1, 2, etc.
2. Or, any time of year for that matter

Pecos

(click to see in Google Earth)

First place I took my intrepid party to was Pecos. It isn’t really a full fledged hike, but a nice meander through the ruins. There is a lot of history wrapped up in the place and you get to see the early blending and confrontation of Spanish and native cultures. There are mountains around that always look to me as though they had a giant bear claw scratches in them. It was here that the party noticed that there are a lot of juniper trees in New Mexico, and I learned the Russian word for that tree.

Tsankawi

(click to see in Google Earth)

The next hiking day we were in Los Alamos (Lost Almost) and we went hiking around the ruins of Tsankawi. e later said that one theory about what happened to the Chacoen culture (the ruins of which we saw in Chaco Canyon) was that they dispersed to places like this.

North Mesa

(click to see in Google Earth)

There was almost half a day left after that so we went out to the end of Horse Mesa to look at the view. Actually I said “edge” when describing the place and e’s ears perked up.

Falls Trail

e rightly insisted that we get up early for our next hike, which was the Bandelier Falls trail. I forgot to bring my GPS, so I can’t show you the route we took, but to describe it, I would say that it was a breathtaking trek through the end of Frijoles Canyon that dumped us onto one side of the Rio Grande. There wasn’t much shade, but we managed to find ourselves a little rabbit hole to have lunch in.

Coyote Trail

(click to see in Google Earth)

I used to drive past the Valle Grande all the time, but it was always private land when I lived in New Mexico. Now it is a park with some odd legal traits, but they let people come in and go hiking now. I got to see the caldera from the inside for the first time ever, but apparently you have to book in advance to do any of the hikes inside the caldera. Instead we opted to take the Coyote trail which affords some nice views of the remains of one really big volcano.

Chaco Canyon: South Mesa Loop

(click to see in Google Earth)

The last big hike we did was in Chaco Canyon. I picked the South Mesa Loop trail, because the last time I had been to Chaco I had done the trail on the north side of the canyon. There are ruins all over the place in every direction and all over the place.

Sandia

(click to see in Google Earth)

Our last day in New Mexico found us in Albuquerque which is best known for being that place that Bugs Bunny took a wrong turn at. We took the tram up to the top of Sandia peek, where we did a little hike out to a little stone hut. I learned the Russian word for pine cone.

Vasquez Rocks

(click to see in Google Earth)

I have been wanting to go to Vasquez Rocks for a while now. For those that don’t know, many a TV series and movie has been filmed here, the best known example is arguably the episode where Kirk fought the Gorn in “Arena”. The rocks featured in the background of this episode (and many others) are appropriately named “the famous rocks”.

P.S. I am back in Australia now.