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For stats, scroll down. I'm still in the same internet cafe, so nothing has changed (unless... is that a tumbleweed blowing past the window?? Oh. No, that's a UT student.)

Friday was a good day. Paul and I spent the morning relaxing and catching up on email and the sort while Peter was at work, all in anticipation of that evening’s events. Sherman Alexie, an author who I happen to really enjoy, was speaking in Durango, CO – an hour’s drive from Cortez – that evening and tickets were free. The only catch was that the 700-seat auditorium could fill up fast. Sherman Alexie, not only an extremely talented and acclaimed writer, is also a hilarious, political, forward speaker and never boring. We popped in the car as soon as we could, and the three of us took off for Durango. After realizing that we may have overestimated how quickly seats would fill (we arrived at 5,) we decided to grab a quick dinner at a Himalayan restaurant in downtown before returning to Fort Lewis’ concert hall. Friday also happened to be Peter’s birthday, so we got to toast him over dinner, which was nice. Dinner was delicious (the matter paneer was better than Nawab’s…) but I, for one, was eager to return to the concert hall. Good thing, too, as the place had filled considerably since we left! The auditorium was nearly full, yet somehow there were extra seats in the front, so we grabbed three of those and sat down to await Sherman Alexie’s entrance.

I really don’t know what to say about the event except that I probably laughed 90% of the time. He spoke about the elections, he spoke about “veee-gans” (which he is not,) he spoke about Native Americans (which he is,) he spoke about his appearance on Oprah, he spoke about his family, he spoke about a lot and made fun of it all. And it was just hysterical. He also flirted with the crowd as a whole and also, and we can thank our front row seats for this, Paul and me specifically. He talked about Paul for a little while (“I bet you could buck a few bales of hay”) before we figured out it was actually Paul that he was speaking of but once we did, it was awkwardly hilarious. Alexie even recommended to us that we start a website: hotfreerangecouples.com

We stuck around after the show for the book signing. We were all the way at the end of the line, and assumed that he would be exhausted by the time we got up there, but we were amused (and red-faced) that he again called us out. He even apologized for embarrassing us, but made a pretty good point: “If you’re going to be called out in front of 700 people, it’s probably not bad to be called out for being good looking.” True, Sherman. Things could have been worse. We thanked him for his speech, got our books signed, and moved along our way. Poor Peter, who hunched down in his seat and then hung back a bit during the signing, didn’t get noticed enough to turn it into hotfreerangetrio.com but perhaps that actually makes him luckier than us. We drove that night to Bondad, just outside of Durango, to stay the night with Jan and Joe (Peter’s dad.) They are newly moved into their house (about one week ago) which is just gorgeous. Big windows overlooking the river, airy rooms, it was all just amazing.

The next morning, after delicious huevos rancheros prepared by Joe, the boys went about some business of transporting the llama or something (don’t ask me, I have no idea. They left while I was on the phone with my parents and appreciating the views from the deck.) We soon packed up and headed into town with Jan and Joe to catch a screening of Borat. Now, this was the first time I had ever seen that character – I am apparently the only person in the country to have missed the Ali G show – but after rave reviews from critics and excitement heard from both Paul and Peter, I had high hopes. I think we all agreed afterwards, though, that while the movie had very funny moments, it was quite over the top and hard to watch at parts. We headed back to Cortez for a relaxing evening before retiring early with ideas of an early morning for the next day’s plans for Arches National Park.

The next morning proved rainy and less than ideal for a day of hiking, so Paul and I delayed our plans for Arches for a day and had another relaxing day. We read, emailed, napped, wrote, and had just a really great day of doing nothing. It’s amazing how tired we get on this 4-month trip, but we are appreciative of those sorts of days. Or, in the case of Cortez, the entire weekend. Anyhow, that Sunday night also brought about an event that Paul and I had been waiting many moons for. It brought about our version of the Superbowl. It brought about… Iron Chef America, Rachel Ray and Mario Batali versus Giada De Laurentiis and Bobby Flay. Oh, Paul and I had been drooling over this event for weeks. We had gone out to Tequilas for dinner that night (a delicious Mexican restaurant) and we rushed rushed home in order to get there in time. It was intense, it was fun, and it was a beautiful showcase of culinary mastery. Especially on Rachel and Mario’s side. They won, which pleased Paul and me immensely. I tell you, between the midterm elections and Iron Chef, I don’t think I’ve ever had so many things going my way at once.

Monday morning, the weather was much nicer (despite our first snow of the trip, for the first few minutes of the drive) and we headed out to Arches National Park, back in Utah. Shortly before reaching the park, though, we stopped at what I was hoping to be one of the most touristy spots of the trip: Hole in the Rock. We took the guided tour of the house that had been built into rock (not in any natural cave either. The man dynamited out all of the rock he and his wife needed for living space.) It was hilariously awful.

Not quite sure why the " is after the N, but okay!

On to Arches. The drive had been lovely and the park was lovelier. We took a mini hike up to the Windows, appreciating the red and orange colors of the rock up against the brown and yellows of the desert sand up against the blue snow-capped mountains. It was really something. After that hike, we debated over whether to hike up to delicate arch (the one on the Utah license plates) or to head to a longer hike in the back of the park recommended by my mom. As I had done the delicate arch in May and Paul was happy to see the arch from a viewpoint, we decided on the latter hike and were so glad that we did. It was a 7 mile hike that took us to many arches and up and over rocks and culminated in Dark Angel, a rock formation that was so stunningly interesting, largely due to the fact that we ended up seeing a total of five different angel faces in the rock. Paul believes that he knows the actual one for which the rock is named, but I think that many of them could be the namesake. Any which way, it was a glorious hike and we tiredly but happily returned to the car for the drive back to Cortez. We stopped along the road for dinner at Nero’s, an Italian restaurant with Southwest décor. It was… interesting looking. The food, though, was exquisite. (In the words of our good friend Roy, Paul and I are “looking very well-fed” and we are only growing more so.)

The windows also make for a creepy face

Paul and the Arch

Ohhh, snow-covered mountains...

Can you spot the dark angel?

One more thing worth mentioning about this drive home is that Speed Blazer picked up yet another quirk. The overhead light in the car now flickers on and off, at its own discretion. We attributed the problem to the backhatch, which you may remember stopped opening, as we believe it’s stuck in a state of not-quite-closed-yet-not-quite-open and thus triggers the open door light from time to time. It was disconcerting at first, but we’ve grown quite used to it and hardly notice it now. We just feel for the other drivers on the road when it is dark, as they must be perplexed by us (and maybe even, at a distance, confuse us for a cop car with blinking lights.)

Tuesday, Paul and I headed into downtown Cortez to check out some shops and the bookstore, for Internet access and lunch before meeting up with Peter to head out to Mesa Verde, the National Park nearby which houses ancient Puebloan cliff dwellings. We got there in time for a guided tour down to Spruce Tree House, where we saw and learned about a massive dwelling that was home for 60-80 people. Our tour guide was great – informative, interesting, and very good at dealing with the obnoxious members on the tour (not us!) – and we even got to climb down into a reconstructed kiva, which was exciting. We returned to Peter’s house for dinner and a viewing of Tortilla Soup, a very cute, fun, and delicious movie. Between Iron Chef and Tortilla Soup, I think Paul and I are craving the liberty of having kitchens again when we finally get off the road in December. I know we both have had multiple dreams about food, including one for Paul where he (I was awake to witness this) started chewing noisily and said, “Mmmmmm, that’s gooooooood!”

the cliff-dwellings

the non-roofed kiva

Wednesday morning, Paul and I left early for the gorgeous drive along the San Juan skyway. This is a loop that Cortez is conveniently located in the middle of, which drives through gorgeous scenery and several adorable old towns. The high elevation and the cold weather of the past several days gave us beautiful snow pretty much everywhere we drove. Our first stop was in Telluride, the well-known ski town. Unfortunately we were just a little too early for the ski slopes to be open, but it didn’t stop us (well, maybe just me) from lusting after the map of the slopes. I had hoped that we could take the free gondola up the mountain to get a good view but, for the second time in my life now, the “Every day, 7 AM to midnight!” sign was a lie and we were out of luck. We enjoyed just walking around the town, though, even while lamenting its lack of coffee shops.

Back in the car, we enjoyed more snowy scenery as we headed into Ouray, another tiny town with a cute little downtown. Again, we had some difficulties finding a place to grab a hot beverage (and some soup for lunch) but I suppose that happens when you visit towns between the summer tourist rush and the ski tourist rush. We drove through many more towns and many twisty roads not stopping again until Durango, where we paused just briefly (having seen some of it already the night of the Sherman Alexie event) to visit the famous Jean-Pierre French bakery to pick up some croissants for the next morning’s breakfast. Paul and I also, and I can’t remember how it started or why we thought it was such a good idea, decided to speak in only rhyme for part of the drive. This lasted for probably, oh, about two hours. Two hours, people. Needless to say, we forced ourselves to end the game when we started reprimanding ourselves for not thinking in rhyme. We got back to Cortez that evening just in time to see the sun setting behind Sleeping Ute and pick up some groceries for dinner. We got back to Peter’s house in time for cooking, foosball, and several episodes of Arrested Development. This was one of the nicest days in quite awhile, in my opinion.

San Juan skyway

Ouray

Thursday morning, after those delicious Jean Pierre pastries, Paul and I bid farewell to Francesca and Peter and hit the road. We drove a short while down to the Four Corners monument where we enjoyed standing in four states at once. Even more than just stand, though, I had a dance party in four states and Paul ran through four states! After that exhausting workout of ours, we got back into the car and headed across New Mexico to Taos, “the soul of the southwest.” We walked around, enjoying the southwestern architecture and cute shops, for a few hours before pressing on to Santa Fe. We got to Santa Fe late enough to check into our hotel, grab a quick dinner at a Mexican restaurant down the road recommended by our check-in guy, and retire for the evening to Austin Powers 3.

Dance Party

Long run

We took a nice relaxing morning in the hotel room, catching some news, before heading to the Santa Fe plaza. The town was cute but I think that the guidebooks were right on to note that many tourists will wonder, “what’s the fuss about?” It was quaint and the architecture was certainly lovely, but after a quick lunch at the highly praised Tia Sophia, we were on our way.

I did my best to look South-western

Our next stop was one of my highly-anticipated places of the trip: Roswell. Roswell has all of the alien merchandise you could dream of, as well as a knock-out museum detailing all sorts of UFO info, including a well-done chronology on the events of the alleged UFO crash near Roswell in 1947. The information that was presented was really interesting and certainly makes you wonder. Now, I think neither Paul nor I were convinced that the crash definitely took place, but we were not certain that it didn’t happen either. It was curious that so many military personages had issued statements in favor of the UFO and military cover-up theory.

If only Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny had been part of the exhibit...

Our awesome dining experience

We planned to camp Friday evening in the Bottomless Lake State Park down the road from Roswell, but we sadly discovered that we needed a New Mexico state park permit in order to do so. We pressed on looking for another campsite. Or at least that’s what we said we were going to do. We both secretly were scouting out motel signs, hoping to find a cheap one along the way that we could nonchalantly mention to the other. When we discovered that the other didn’t want to camp, either, we happily found a motel in the town of Carlsbad, not too far from our planned stop the next day at Carlsbad Caverns National Park. And so there we sat, enjoying Paula Dean on the Food Network and having walls and a bed.

The following day we got into the Park too late for our long spelunking expedition that we so badly wanted to do (4 hours of crawling through mud into tiny spots) because it had filled up; but we were not dissapointed due to the great lecture on bats and well-guided 2 hour tour of one of the caverns. Our tour guide looked remarkably like Ellen from "Pete and Pete." Anyone know if that actress pursued a career in the National Park Service? We pressed on to camp that night at the Guadelupe Mountains National Park, enjoying another gorgeous campsite before losing all natural light. We concluded Season 3 of Arrested Development in our tent that evening. It was intense. It was enjoyable. It was also very sad, knowing that we were officially done.

The following morning, realizing just how big Texas is, we decided to get as much distance covered that day as possible. There's not much to say about the day, as we just drove and drove, except that we made good progress in Anna Karenina, which we are happily engaged in once again. We camped that night outside of Fredericksburg, a German-settled town, which had a very cute and festive main street. We dined in a Texas bar, complete with a crooning guitar player with a strong Texas accent.

The next day we drove to a campsite in between San Antonio and Austin, set up the tent, and heading south into San Antonio. Our first matter of business was, of course, to check out the Alamo. It actually was very neat to see and great to get a history lesson in the surrounding museum. I feel we got a better understanding of Texan mentality. And we have been careful not to mention our political leanings too loudly.

After the Alamo, we walked the riverwalk ("Other towns have rivers. San Antonio has a riverwalk.") which was exceptionally pretty until you look too closely down into the river and notice the chairs and soda cans littering the bottom. We dined at a restaurant right on the river (very fancy for our budget) and enjoyed the lights along the river as well as all of the people-watching. We also enjoyed our second night of hangman games while awaiting our meal (I just realized how hilariously appropriate it is that we get into that game while in Texas...) much to the amusement of our waitress.

We returned to our campsite for sleeping that night, appreciating and admiring the lake-front site that we selected before retiring. And now we're in Austin! I don't really know much about Austin yet, as I sit in a Pita Pit for the wi-fi to complete these posts and Paul sits somewhere nearby in a garage while Speedy gets a makeover (an oil change and new brake pads!) But I'm sure we'll have good stories to tell about the city on the next post. Until next time!

(And good job to those of you who read through the whole lengthy post(s)!!)

Love, hugs, and kisses,

Alina