Hiding in plain sight: ancestral greetings

If I just sit very still here the human will not notice me. 

A superbly camouflaged cottontail headed up the welcome party at the Adobe Cabin, Faywood Hotsprings. 

I am willing to bet good money that many humans don't notice this little fear caller who has mastered the art of stillness. Just the sunlight shining through lightly trembling ears alerts me. 

Lizards and rabbits: my maternal and paternal aumakua wait for me in this place. I am brought home amongst familiars.

Home away from home: delusions of privacy

My overnight home on this trip: the Adobe cabin at Faywood Hotsprings.

Ironically this casita is about the same size as my weekday home. This one, however, is filled by a sumptuous four poster bed and very little else. 

No indoor plumbing, this is a " dry" cabin. Bring you own water for the coffee machine. There is a refrigerator and a microwave, hooks on the walls to hang those clothes you aren't going to need. 

Oh and the curtains aren't much good at night with the light on. A fact which I discover in the dark hours of the night. I rented the cabin for privacy, this being a clothing optional resort ( in parts) only to discover that this notion of privacy was delusion. Oh well.

Maybe when the mesquite trees surrounding have foliage there is more illusion. I am visiting in the winter bare season.

Gone south

At last! satisfyingly warm afternoon temperatures.

Of course I had to drive 500 miles south for this but oh! so worth it to feel warm again

Spy in the house of love

These posts brought to you by.....the coffee shop on every corner....

Skyscape

Black and blue but not bruised

Letting the light in

The best thing about road trips is starting before dawn so I can watch the light stain the world with colour. 

Dawn light show was around Cuba, New Mexico this time around

Gooooooood Morning, New Mexico!

Good night New Mexico

Chiming in from the shadow dance

South facing advantage. La golondrina.

Remember what the groundhog said

That rodent might be right about the early spring: lilac buds spread a subtle yellow green bloom

Enchanted light

What? Another spectacular sunset?

Must be in New Mexico.

Fuel for the road

Roadside espresso-to-go stand, Dolores, CO

Geyserville

Somewhere in south west Colorado. 

Jou ma se....wat?

In Placerville, CO. For my homies from the Old Country, especially the Wes Kaap

Thai Paradise

Thai green curry with a rich, spicy coconut sauce, and green tea. 

Supper in Ridgeway, CO, pop 900,  at a surprisingly authentic Thai restaurant

Holo holo

Rear window sticker on a truck at the hotsprings. The universe speaks in mysterious ways.

*" holoholo" is Hawaiian Creole (pidgin) for " to go for a ride/ go on a journey"

In hot water

Mission accomplished: the indoor soaking tub at Orvis Hotsprings, Ridgeway, CO. Sunlight reflecting off water looks like flames on the walls

Sunlight and fresh air streams through an open window in the cedar walled room.

This indoor soaking tub at Orvis Hotsprings is bigger and comes with the premium live window cat installation. 

Cat resolutely deals with the indignity of naked human by pretending interest in the robins outside.

Still refusing to make eye contact,  the soaking tub cat is caught investigating my stuff.

Petals from a long dead Valentine

(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),  

And I will show you something different from either  

Your shadow at morning striding behind you  

Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;  

I will show you fear in a handful of dust.

Our lady of sorrows

The Dolores River is poufy with snow. Winter bare trees cast graphic shadows. 

A black and white in colour part of the roadtrip

Remember what the dormouse said

What's a roadtrip without a breakfast stop?

Absolute Bakery Cafe (7000 feet and rising according to the t-short slogan) in Mancos, Colorado, does a hearty vegan burrito smothered in green chile. 

This burrito has ample proportions. I had to take half to go, giving the interior of the Red Pony a lovely, wholesome food aroma.

The high altitude ABC Bakery wears their opinions and life choices on the walls, if not their sleeves, chests and aprons, often handwritten, sometimes carved in wood.

"No wifi. Talk to each other" says a sign prominently displayed behind the cash register.

They also opine:

"Old hippies don't t die, they just bake"

"Kissin', wears out, cookin don't "

And they don't seat incomplete parties. This sign had me pondered the complexity of completion.

The vanishing point

Daring infinity roadtripping southwest Colorado in late winter.

Songs of innocence and experience

What they don't tell you when you move from a tropical island to the high desert is that your eyeballs will dry out and grow scales and you will learn new words like pinguecula and pterygium

What a lot of eyes inhabit la casita.

Old folks home with a view

Sunday afternoon strolling around the neighborhood: looking across the cemetery at the San Juan mountains. 

These ancestors have the best view in town. 

Little Rabbit

Sunday afternoon strolling brought me to a place on top of the world where the magnificent San Juan mountains draw a snow white horizon in the big blue

Dancing alignment: celestial navigation

There was a thin crescent in the dawn sky this morning. 

Planets are beginning to dance attendance on the moon in the mornings for the next few days.

Urban foraging

It was a parking lot assignation, arranged by text message.

Them: black Highlander near the car wash. 

Me: red Escape. 

I see you. 

Money changes hands. 

I am ten fresh,homemade, vegetarian samosas richer. 

Red Pony smelling like India: cumin and curry. The only way to get Indian food without crossing state lines. 

Did I mention how much I love entrepreneurial women?