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Lee and I drove all day and all night, pulling up the driveway in Pagosa around 5:30 this morning, but I'm getting ahead of myself.
I managed to get Lee up around 8:20 am yesterday, and we eventually got on the road around 10 am. On the way out of town, we stopped at the "Russian store" up around Braeswood, and at a Toys-R-Us on Westheimer to provision outselves for our arrival in Colorado.
I elected to take the I-10 route, and things were pretty uneventful (except for the part near Sherman, Texas, about 60 miles short of Ft. Stockton, where I was wondering if the gas would give out before we found a place to refuel, which we did at Sherman). Cruise control is a wonderful thing out on the open highway.
As the sun set, I continued to drive up highway 285 into the Mountain Time Zone. Eventually, we stopped for gas at a station in Roswell, a few blocks short of the UFO museum. I gave up the wheel to Lee.
A few miles north of Roswell, our attention was distracted momentarily by something, and when I looked out the front window, there was a small deer standing broadside to us in our lane. We both shouted and with some immediate action, I think we missed the animal by a good... yard. (It was just a good thing the deer did not decide to get out of our way by jumping directly in front of us again, which has been known to happen.) Lee noted later that it was probably a good thing the cruise control was not engaged, as our margin had been pretty thin.
From that point on, we were both on extreme lookout for animals along the road. At one point, I was too bushed to watch, so somewhere north of Clines Corners and south of Santa Fe I closed my eyes, and the next thing I knew we were 75 miles south of Chama, or less than 130 miles from home.
On the road between Chromo and Pagosa, Lee saw an oncoming car hit a deer (a shadow, an extinguished headlight, and a wounded animal fleeing into the night). We stopped to see if anyone needed help, which nobody did. The people driving the car were pretty shaken, but the car had suffered a glancing impact and there appeared to be minimum damage. The deer is undoubtedly dead, somewhere in the forest.
I'm just wondering what would've happened if the deer had been 3-4 feet to the left of the other car's track, that is, directly in ours? I like to think we would not have hit it, as we were going about 30 mph down highway 84, feeling for all the world like daredevils. (That, plus Lee was taking vicarious pleasure in honking the horn as we drove along, to warn wildlife down the road.)
The important thing is: we got to Pagosa safely.
After unpacking the car, Lee and I hit the sack for a couple of hours. Huntur's birthday party was scheduled for noon.
* * * I don't know if it's just us or not, but getting ready for parties has never been easy in this household. We made a couple of trips to the grocery store for last-minute items, and finally got everything squared away.
For my part, I could not shake this feeling of utter exhaustion, despite the 2-3 hours I'd slept in the car and the additional 2-3 hours I'd slept since coming home. My eyes are still scratchy and my head hurts. It may be "altitude sickness" (we are, after all, a mile and half up here - 7680 ft according to the Magellan), compounded with the haze in the air. There have been no fires in the immediate vicinity, but rumors fly, and who knows where the smoke that all but hid the mountains this morning came from.
Anyway, I'm getting away from the focus of this part of the post: Huntur.
Here's a shot of her in her fashionable new sunglasses, with some of the "spoils" of her first birthday scattered at her feet.
Of course, no birthday is complete without a cake, and here Huntur does her studious, serious best to get the better of a piece of cake she'd been balancing on her fork (in truth, the piece was stuck). A proud pose!
God bless you, child, and may you live to see a hundred more summers!
Cheers...
I managed to get Lee up around 8:20 am yesterday, and we eventually got on the road around 10 am. On the way out of town, we stopped at the "Russian store" up around Braeswood, and at a Toys-R-Us on Westheimer to provision outselves for our arrival in Colorado.
I elected to take the I-10 route, and things were pretty uneventful (except for the part near Sherman, Texas, about 60 miles short of Ft. Stockton, where I was wondering if the gas would give out before we found a place to refuel, which we did at Sherman). Cruise control is a wonderful thing out on the open highway.
As the sun set, I continued to drive up highway 285 into the Mountain Time Zone. Eventually, we stopped for gas at a station in Roswell, a few blocks short of the UFO museum. I gave up the wheel to Lee.
A few miles north of Roswell, our attention was distracted momentarily by something, and when I looked out the front window, there was a small deer standing broadside to us in our lane. We both shouted and with some immediate action, I think we missed the animal by a good... yard. (It was just a good thing the deer did not decide to get out of our way by jumping directly in front of us again, which has been known to happen.) Lee noted later that it was probably a good thing the cruise control was not engaged, as our margin had been pretty thin.
From that point on, we were both on extreme lookout for animals along the road. At one point, I was too bushed to watch, so somewhere north of Clines Corners and south of Santa Fe I closed my eyes, and the next thing I knew we were 75 miles south of Chama, or less than 130 miles from home.
On the road between Chromo and Pagosa, Lee saw an oncoming car hit a deer (a shadow, an extinguished headlight, and a wounded animal fleeing into the night). We stopped to see if anyone needed help, which nobody did. The people driving the car were pretty shaken, but the car had suffered a glancing impact and there appeared to be minimum damage. The deer is undoubtedly dead, somewhere in the forest.
I'm just wondering what would've happened if the deer had been 3-4 feet to the left of the other car's track, that is, directly in ours? I like to think we would not have hit it, as we were going about 30 mph down highway 84, feeling for all the world like daredevils. (That, plus Lee was taking vicarious pleasure in honking the horn as we drove along, to warn wildlife down the road.)
The important thing is: we got to Pagosa safely.
After unpacking the car, Lee and I hit the sack for a couple of hours. Huntur's birthday party was scheduled for noon.
For my part, I could not shake this feeling of utter exhaustion, despite the 2-3 hours I'd slept in the car and the additional 2-3 hours I'd slept since coming home. My eyes are still scratchy and my head hurts. It may be "altitude sickness" (we are, after all, a mile and half up here - 7680 ft according to the Magellan), compounded with the haze in the air. There have been no fires in the immediate vicinity, but rumors fly, and who knows where the smoke that all but hid the mountains this morning came from.
Anyway, I'm getting away from the focus of this part of the post: Huntur.
Here's a shot of her in her fashionable new sunglasses, with some of the "spoils" of her first birthday scattered at her feet.
Of course, no birthday is complete without a cake, and here Huntur does her studious, serious best to get the better of a piece of cake she'd been balancing on her fork (in truth, the piece was stuck). A proud pose!
God bless you, child, and may you live to see a hundred more summers!
Cheers...
