Getting to Know You - Again

As I said at some point earlier, the main thread of this trip for me was to get to know the other girls (women now, but always girls to me).

 And in this respect I made progress. I wish I'd known them all better in high school but later is better than never. And here they are, from left to right: Diana, Ann, Elly and Cecile.
Diana is the artist - very creative, able to put together exciting combinations, whether they be food, fabric or a canvass. Diana is very outgoing and attracts attention in whatever she does.
Ann is quiet and thoughtful, but with a wonderful sense of humor. She is a humanitarian to the nth degree and is well known around Santa Fe, which we discovered as we walked around town and every other person we ran into seemed to know her. She is a great hostess,, letting her guests go their own way or going with them if she and they want that. She opened her home to four of us and would have had more if they could come, yet she let us do our own thing in her home and was very relaxed the whole time. Don't think I could be that laid back.
Elly is also a humanitarian. In fact, in the year just after college, Ann and Elly traveled around the world together to places young women rarely went to in those days. Elly is the most analytical of the group, looking at everything from all directions. She is unquestionably the thread that held this group together because she has always kept track of and cared about all her friends. Without her, we would never have had this trip or at least it would have been made up of other people. But Elly is also a worrier and second guesses herself too much, causing herself great pain I think.  Although she has a great sense of humor.
One night she backed the car up and ended up with the  rear tire hanging over the edge of a rock wall. We had to call AAA to get it hauled back onto the driveway. The next day she bought a card with a picture of a truck in a tree and made copies of it for all of us as a memento!
Elly and I met in junior high and were close friends for the next six years. We've stayed in touch through the years since then but while she's stayed in touch with many of our classmates, I've let most of those friendships slip, which is why Elly was my entree to this trip.

Cecile revealed more of herself with each day and by the end of the week had us all helping her with a secret assignment. She won my respect because while she had a real estate deal going back home, which an associate was handling for her, she was able to refrain from either talking to or emailing her associate to find out how the deal was going. I think I would have bitten off 10 fingernails, maybe even the fingers with them and been checking emails constantly. Cecile is a striking woman, with the kind of high cheekbones we all covet and a real sense of style.
Okay, so that's the group. But there was one other  member I haven't mentioned: a male named Monty. We were all in love with Monty!

Santa Fe, Part II

This is getting harder as the days go by and the trip recedes further from my memory. But the things that come to mind have more to do with the individuals than with our activities.
For instance, one of the things that stands out in my mind is that when Ellie and I finally were up and dressed and wandered the 100 yards to the main house, Diana was the only one awake and she was happily preparing a big breakfast for everyone! She was at the stove making pancakes and already had put together a huge fruit salad: it was clear we wouldn't starve with Diana in the kitchen!
You can see that even the dog sticks around when Diana is in the kitchen!

Even with the daily notes I took, it's hard to refresh my mind on all the details of the trip. Especially since I've procrastinated writing this for so long that I've forgotten everything.


Here's a picture of the five of us, taken the day we went to Taos. One of the waiters was kind enough to take the picture so we could all be in it.
It was a wonderful day and, if you look at the photos in the blog entry below this one (which was sort of a mistake because I was trying to figure out how to put pictures into the blog) you'll see the photos I took on the way back to Santa Fe.
We had a wonderful day in Taos, which was not exactly what I expected but quite lovely.  Following are some photos of the town. On the left is a view looking away from the town toward the mountains. On the right is a view looking toward the Mall restaurant where we had lunch. And with that I'll end this entry.

Pictures of Santa Fe

These are pictures I took on the way from Taos to Santa FE. Some of them are from the house in Sanata Fe. Isn't the sky beautiful

This wasn't what I had in mind when I started out today but I am learning how to work this blog very, very slowly. I think I am going to quit for now and if anyone tunes into this blog, they will see some pretty pictures of the sky. One of these days I'll figure out a better way to put pictures in.