road tripping [part iii]

Sometimes, things don't go according to plan. No matter how carefully scheduled one's itinerary is, it seems that God always has something different in mind. Case in point: I had planned to post this last night, but Blogger crashed, deleting nearly everything I'd done. Then wildfires broke out five miles from us (one of which has grown to over ninety thousand acres since its start three days ago), forcing us to rethink our journey.

 Smoke billowed from the blazes, the plumes raising to thirty thousand feet above the ground. Everything was bathed in a strange orange glow and the smell of smoke was strong in the air.

So I'm back in Taos, though this time I'm tapping at my keyboard from a cozy hotel room instead of watching the sun slip behind the mountains. While I'm a bit disappointed we didn't make it to Santa Fe, due to the severity of the smoke there as well as evacuees, Taos has by far been my favorite stop in New Mexico.

There were times when the city girl in me reared her head, lamenting over the dust that seemed to find its way into everything, the gnats constantly buzzing, the walks to the bathroom in the darkness of night (where MeMe ran across a rattlesnake one night...eek).

But then there were moments like seeing the world spread out before you after hiking to the top of a mesa seven hundred feet above the ground – it made the bugs and dirt worth it. Heights make my palms damp and heart race, but while balanced (slightly precariously) on the edge of a rock, gazing at everything below me, it wasn't quite so bad.

The temperature – which, we were told, was unseasonably high – dipped for a few hours, giving us some time to go to a lake. The water was choppy from the wind, and against a backdrop of smoke shrouded mountains, it was beautiful. I sat on a rock jutting out over the water, absorbing my surroundings. The wind snarled and twisted my hair into knots, but at that moment it didn't matter.

Today we being the trek home. These past nine days have been brimming with new things and time spent with family and friends – a combination sure to garner a lovely time. Our time here will be slipped into the well worn journal that is our family history, a vacation that will evoke laughter and smiles when thought of. While I'll be glad to return to a soft bed and not having to live out of a suitcase, I'm going to miss New Mexico and all the memories we've made here.

Today I'll say goodbye to New Mexico and all its beauty and say hello to the wind swept plains of Oklahoma that I call home.

Happy Thursday, friends.

-carlotta