Maureen's Balloon Ride

Just before we left Taos Maureen went on a balloon ride over the Rio Grande. I am not a fan of heights so...

Here are her photos...from sunrise (she left at 5am) to the balloon getting ready to touching down in the Rio Grande river to some great views of where we ran during our 6 weeks in Taos

Goodbye, Taos

We spent more time in Taos (45 days) than any place except Sooke, BC (55 days), since we left Bothell 280 days ago.

We missed out on many great photos:

- a bear outside our door as Maureen was lying on the couch
- foxes
- a herd of yak on the "street" next to ours (the herder said "the yaks got out again")

We did get pics of a wild turkey at out house and the sheep up the road





There are horses everywhere in Taos





This is downtown Arroyo Seco, which was closer to our house, which was between Taos and Taos Ski area



Late April and early May had some wild weather in Northern New Mexico. Snow, strong winds and hail. Here is a typical storm. Rolled in and gone in 20 minutes. That's hail in the 2nd pic





So we headed back to Santa Fe for another 3 weeks. Here are a few shots of the beautiful drive









OK...caught up again!

Hudson's Pals

We generally love New Mexico. The winds have gotten irritating - every day it seems they'll blow from 20-50mph. It is sunny, though, and I'm sure the winds are less frustrating than the daily winter rains in the PNW. Folks are very nice - and so are the dogs. Here are a few of the friends Hudson has met in New Mexico...

This big boy lived a few houses up from us in Taos (a few houses was half a mile). His favorite toy was a duck and he never moved for us - we had to go off-roading to get around him. One day we saw him in Arroyo Seco about 3 miles away, just wandering about...



These two - also on our "street" - guarded sheep. They would run up every time we drove by, at first barking rather meanly. They escaped, one day, and came all the way up to our house (we were the last house on the street before the road disappeared into the mountains). After hanging at our house a few minutes they continued off up into the mountains. From then on they were much more pleasant and instead of barking seemed to be jumping up to look for Hudson.





And this is Lucky, Hudson's Santa Fe buddy. He came over one day and he and Hud hung out a few hours, including several bursts of sprints









Hopefully Hudson will get to hang with Walter Kirk, his old Seattle pal. Walter moved to Denver and we'll be in Boulder for 10 nights in June...