Some of you know that we are avid cyclists back in The Villages, riding our very lightweight carbon fiber bikes 20-30 miles 2-3 times per week. On this trip, we brought heavy mountain bikes to be able to enjoy the back roads, trails and "singletracks" that the Southwest/West is famous for. These bikes also take abuse much better; they ride on the back of our car in the rain and dust. This morning after a hearty breakfast, we donned our bike shorts and jerseys and struck out on a trail system near Santa Fe. It quickly went from moderate jeep trails to challenging singletrack as the trails rose and fell on rocky paths and sandy arroyos. And remember, we're at 7,000 feet. Here is Suzanne feeling fresh and having fun.
I don't have a photo of what she looked like an hour later. I knew something was amiss when I called back to her on a steep, windy, rocky downhill asking, "How are you back there?" and hearing a "I'm just won-derful!" in a somewhat --shall we say -- "frustrated" voice. She hadn't fallen (although I had, once or maybe even twice), but the altitude and strenuous trails were clearly having a deleterious effect on her. (I, of course, was feeling quite chipper and not at all fatigued.... HA!). We finally found our way back to our car; on the way home, Suzanne mentioned how much fun our ride would have been for sixteen year old boys... and reminded me that I was no longer a sixteen year old boy. "What do you mean by that, My Sweet?"). When we got back to the coach, Suzanne took a nice hot shower and disappeared for an hour-long chakra-clearing exercise, which brought her back to the Land of the Happy Medium.
Finally, a note on Southwest architecture. This is quite typical of adobe architectural design out here; thick walls, heavy wood beams supporting the second story, heavy Spanish colonial furniture, and large walled courtyards. The heat obviously drives a lot of the design; there are fewer windows than we are used to in Florida, although I understand that solar tube lighting is popular. Also, a lot of people live "off the grid" (not even connected to city electric power), using solar panels to charge large battery banks that use inverters to convert DC power to 120 VAC household current. It's windy here, with daytime winds often in the 25-35 mph range. It's also very dusty, and there aren't any lawns to speak of. That eliminates a lot of water usage. Speaking of that, many of the houses have barrels at the bottom of drain downspouts; the barrels collect rainwater, and there are taps at the bottoms of the barrels to which you connect your hose for watering flowers in the garden.
Gretchen is back to normal today, and she and Rudy are looking forward to a post-dinner w-a-l-k in t-o-w-n.
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