Nonimmigrant: September 2020

Sunday 6 September 2020

The long road home

Now time really was up, mainly because Houston school district failed to push back their starting date any further. Shocking! Not that anything is going to happen in-person, but we did need better Internet than the wilds of New Mexico offered.

We spent our final days fitting in a few more hikes, dreading getting stuck inside again by the soupy weather of coastal Texas. Pete and I had a nice wander around some abandoned gold mines that - as in most gold rushes - only made money for the people who subdivided and sold them rather than dug there.

Getting home was the small matter of a 13-hour drive, a distance unimaginable to our British sensibilities but piffle in our American context. In the end it was fine given the long, straight, empty roads (until drawing close to the highway nightmare of Houston, at least) and did allow us a sneaky In-N-Out drive-thru on the outskirts of Waco.

It turns out that you can leave your house for six weeks with little problem, especially with wonderful neighbours like Kindra and David to keep an eye on it, and apart from a dead fly here and there and a lime tree full of fruit (yay!) nothing had changed, not even the humidity. Bring on winter!

New Mexico has been very good to us these last few weeks, so much so that Hannah's eyeing mountain-based jobs. Ski instructor? Chalet girl? Maybe if they actually find gold it'll be worthwhile, but until then black gold remains the best bet.

Surveying.

Yep, still no gold.

But we did find some archaeology! This is a rather fine Native American arrowhead (which, being proper archaeologists, we left in-situ).

Ha!

An old goldmine.

A little more extreme sport.

Falling far below my wife and son, in every respect.

I sort of managed to almost take a photo of the Milky Way!

A final, wistful look at the cool peaks and pines.

Worth driving 13 hours for.

Tuesday 1 September 2020

A change of pace

Despite waiting patiently for it to change, the desert remained hot and dry. But thankfully there are some hills nearby, on the other side of Santa Fe, and an interesting National Park in-between.

Pecos National Historical Park is a very ancient and very important Native American site, with a great location on a river between plains and mountains. It was a cultural and economic hub but (surprise) was quickly seized by colonials after they discovered it. Amazingly it wasn't the British to blame this time but the Spanish! After revolts, reclamations, the Santa Fe Trail, and the Mexican-American War, all that's now left is archaeological digs and the remnants of an old church. Visiting medieval churches was a staple of Hannah's European family holidays, so we continued the tradition.

The next day we ran for the hills and found a fantastic walk in Santa Fe National Forest, a beautiful mix of pines and aspen. Like a lot of places around here, this is a ski resort in the winter but right now is the perfect location and temperature to hike. Even Pete didn't complain. Much.

Then the highlight: Hannah had discovered that nearby, still high in the hills, was a Japanese spa. Pete has been going on about "onsen" ever since our holiday to Japan last year, and due to Covid the Ten Thousand Waves spa is only allowing a few bookings in private outdoor tubs. So in we went, stripped off, and soaked away the hours on the trail. Or me and Hannah did - Pete was more excited about the loo with all the buttons.

Looking out across the Pecos River Valley.

Archaeology.

Measuring the arch.

Walking down the aisle.

Another National Park, another Junior Ranger badge!

Sunset over the sandstone.

Off on the trail again. "Yay!" say some of us.

Add another to the "following Hannah and Pete" photo collection.

Boys outdoors.

Santa Fe is very arty - a fact they trace back to the crafts of Native American dwellers in places like Pecos! So here's some art someone hung on the trail (several miles from anywhere, I should add).