The visitors

My mom left today to return home to New York. I'm sad to see her go. We had a really nice five days filled with sightseeing, hanging out, talking, grilling, and drinking copious amounts of red wine.

I enjoyed being a tourist in Albuquerque and seeing the city through someone else's eyes. The highlight of the visit for me was the trip she and I took up the Sandia mountain tram and down the other side on the ski lift. I had never been on the ski lift before (I've only lived here for three months, after all), but it was great. For $6, you get to ride down what has to be the world's longest ski lift, and then back up again. Since it's the middle of August, not too many people are interested in a ski area, so we had pretty much the entire ski lift to ourselves. On the ride down, which took almost 1/2 hour, we saw only three people... all mountain bikers riding up or down the mountain in the distance.

I felt somewhat superior that I had figured out the easy way to travel! Of course, when we were finished and I saw myself in the bathroom mirror where we stopped for lunch, I realized that I wasn't quite as smart as I had thought. One hour in the sun at high noon in the mountains and I started doing my lobster impression. Silly me forgot to wear sunscreen. So now my face is red, with those lovely racoon eyes where my sunglasses were. And the tops of my legs are burned too between my knees and where my shorts stopped. Ah well.

Next on the agenda is a visit from Chris's second cousin (and god-daughter) Sarah. She's 10, so there will probably be less red wine... stay tuned!