2013
The Land of Enchantment
Today we are in beautiful New Mexico! The first state of our year-long journey on the road. Although we have traveled within her borders many times, it’s always a new and exciting experience driving through the desert river valley of the Rio Grande as the mountains guide us north.
This morning Austin and I attended the First Unitarian Church of Albuquerque, led by Rev. Christine Robinson. The church has 785 members, including three branches in Carlsbad, East Mountains, and Socorro. With it’s community growing in size, First Unitarian is in the midst of building a new, larger sanctuary, as even attending on this cold winter day I found the existing sanctuary full to the brim with fellow UUs. This was only one of three Sunday services held at the Albuquerque sanctuary each Sunday, and did not include children from the Religious Education (RE) classes which Austin attended.
Rev. Robinson’s message was a popular, annual “Obituary” service, honoring with esteem (and much friendly humor!) selected people from our world that passed during the year 2012. Along with uplifting and inviting music and song by the church band, Spare Parts, and a familiar singing of “Spirit of Life,” the community provided a warm, meditative, and inspiring contemporary service.
If you live within the reaches of First Unitarian and would like to attend, you can find information on their upcoming services, events, and locations at www.uuabq.org or by calling (505) 884-1801.
The Fates have finally eased up!
It’s been two weeks with an ER visit, broken window woes, and a winter storm from Mother Nature. But now we are finally getting back on track and back on the road.
New Year’s day was to be our ‘send off’ day, but Austin had a bad cold that got so severe that we ended up spending the day at the William Beaumont Army Medical Center Emergency Room. He still has a cough, but I finally let him break out of our tiny camper for some errands today with me after a week of being couped up.
In November we had a broken dinette window. That was a fun one! I went to open the window the day before Thanksgiving and just as I slid it about three inches out it shattered. The glass company came about a week later, and now, after two previous misfits, they finally installed a properly fitted working window today. (Yes, that’s right, over a month later!)
In the meantime, between the ER visit and the window being installed, Mother Nature picked the perfect timing to send us our first winter snow here in El Paso. Of course, so rare is the snow and ice here that the roads are never cleared and the drivers are without enough practice. The main juncture here, affectionately called the “Spaghetti Bowl” has steep and twisting angles not meant for days without sunshine.
But today we find ourselves ready to roll. We’ve gotten things organized and stored and squirreled away, ready for travel. Austin keeps talking about tomorrow like it’s Christmas all over again and even the dog is looking at me like he truly understands our imminent departure.
One last dinner at Chico’s Tacos, one last glimpse of our beautiful snow covered mountains, and one last drive west out of our city for 2013. Our journey has begun!
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traveling tUUsome 