Traves Tangents

  As we travelled back via the scenic route, the wind began to blow hard… …and the sand began to swirl. It soon became… …a vortex… …and it was hard to see… …the road ahead. It was a relief to be out… …and to be under the blue sky again.

  I do like a Botanic garden… …almost as much as Anastasia loves dessert. The garden here in Sante Fe… …is very new… …but I loved the emphasis… …on native plants… …and they have this lovely bear! Definitely… …somewhere… …to come back to… …as it grows… …and matures.

  Yesterday we went for a drive up to Valles Caldera Natural Reserve, where we could stand in a plateau inside a (hopefully extinct) volcano. I am running out of superlatives, but a need to save some… …for Huw’s driving… …as he successfully negotiated his way up… …and just as importantly, down, some very twisty mountain roads. Our way home took us through, Los Alamos, Atomic City… …which still has a nuclear research facility, necessitating ID checks as you enter the town. It must be a strange place to live, as even now, it’s very isolated, up on ‘the hill’.

  I read an art critic once who said that paintings shouldn’t be reproduced. I have a certain amount of sympathy with that, as like Van Gogh, I never really saw the point… …of Georgia O’Keefe’s work… …until I saw it in its textured, 3D glory. And her work… …really is… …absolutely glorious. But you really need to come… …and see for yourself…because that’s kind of the point… …to look.

 Let’s go to an immersive art installation… …they said. It’ll be fun… …they said. It was astonishing… …disconcerting… …surreal… …bizarre… …and strangely beautiful. I now feel like I’ve had far too many orange sweeties. I’m sure I’ll feel better after a cup of tea and a sit down… …and try not to think about the hamster too much.

 Beautiful Santa Fe… …where instead of hanging baskets of flowers, they hang bunches of dried chillies… …which probably explains why the slugs look like this. It’s home to a cathedral dedicated to St. Francis of Assisi… …but if you’ve read your Willa Cathar, you’ll know that they remember the old gods here. There are a number… …of interesting museums… …but Huw and I plumped for the New Mexico History Museum. I thought it wove the troubled and contested history of this place pretty well…. …and Billy the Kid had surprising good handwriting.