Can you believe it?  I started writing this post yesterday, and now I’m finishing it at 33,000 feet in the air on our flight back to Toronto.  I don’t know about you, but I find this absolutely amazing!

Now, to the post.

So here I am sitting at the café next door to Garcia Books in Santa Fe at 8 in the morning.  This is our last full day here and it has been quite a week.  Let me share a few of the highlights and insights.

Our first day here we hiked through Diablo Canyon.  Three years ago, the first time we came to this wonderful place, we did the same hike.  That time it was a near disaster.  Our first problem had been finding the trailhead and as it turned out we parked 2.5 miles away from it.  So, by the time we started our hike  we’d changed a 6 mile hike into an 11 mile hike.  We’d left early enough to manage the heat – on a 6 mile hike – and we’d brought plenty of water – for a 6 mile hike.  It was a glorious hike, with beautiful rock walls on each side of us,  ending up on the banks of the Rio Grande where we had a lovely picnic.  And then we started the hike back.  Diablo Canyon – the devil’s canyon.  Wondering why it is called that?  We knew instantly as we began our return hike around 11 in the morning.  By this time it was 110 degrees in the shade (and there wasn’t almost any shade), our water supply was running low, and the soft sand that we had to hike through was reflecting more and more heat.  Finally we reached the point where our trusty GPS told us it was only another 1.5 miles.  It might have been 1000 miles;  I knew I couldn’t keep walking.  We had about a drop and a half of water left and were both exhausted.  David, my hero, said he’d hike on ahead and try to drive the car a little closer while I huddled next to a small bush that provided the tiniest bit of shade.  I positioned myself on our emergency blanket so that I was lying down in the sort-of shade and facing the direction he’d be coming from with the car … sweet prince to the rescue.  His last words before he left me were  “I’ll be back with the car in 20 minutes.”  So I waited and watched.  20 minutes.  30 minutes.  40 minutes.  And then I saw a tiny speck in the distance which slowly, slowly turned into David walking back.  The car had indeed been moved closer; about 30 feet closer before it sank into the sand.  Now we both had to hike out of the canyon (at least I was a bit rested by this point) but instead of driving away we were trying to push the car out of the sand.  Being Canadians we both have lots of experience in pushing cars out of snowbanks, but pushing a car out of the sand is really a different kettle of fish.  Needless to say, our efforts yielded no result other than tiring us out even more.  Our good fortune was that there was a highway about a football field away and I spotted a car coming towards us.  “Run, David, run” I cried out (thinking of the closing lines of the movie Camelot … one of my favorites) with what I thought might be my last breath.  And run he did!  Turned out the driver was working on a construction project nearby and although he couldn’t get us unstuck he did go back to the worksite and got someone with a four-wheel drive truck and a towing chain to come to our rescue.  It didn’t take them long to haul us up out of the sand and back onto a paved surface.  We gratefully game them all the money we had in our pockets (about $70) and drove back to Santa Fe with air conditioner on full blast and amazement that we’d survived.  So another Diablo Canyon hike was our first objective; we needed to exonerate ourselves for our earlier stupidity.  I am very happy to report that this time we found the trailhead, brought 4 litres of water with us, and managed to hike through the canyon to the raging Rio Grande (last time it had been barely a trickle) and return to our car 3 hours later …. unscathed.  A good start to our vacation.  Check out this sign that we passed as we walked up the old road back to the car after leaving the canyon.

Fran and Ed (sister and brother-in-law) arrived later that day and we spent the evening walking and having a lovely dinner at Café Martin.  The next morning the four of us did a short hike (more about that in a minute; it was very enlightening …. and scary), walked around town some more, had dinner at Gabriel’s – a great Mexican restaurant just out of town – where we were joined by Sal and Edy who’d also flown in for the week.  Followed that up with a beautiful production of Madama Butterfly at the Santa Fe Opera.

Tuesday was my birthday and we spent another lovely day hiking the Chamisa Trail and then we gathered for dinner at the Coyote Café.  By this time there were 10 of us, as Donna and Ed (from Australia, friends we’d met on our trip to Antarctica a couple of years ago) and their son and daughter-in-law (Michael and Elaine); Michael once cooked a meal for Julia Child … and now he’s cooked a meal for me too)  joined us.  I’d forgotten to make it very clear to everyone that I didn’t want any birthday presents but was hoping, once again, to raise enough money to pay for two kids’ tuitions in Kosovo.  An aside – I’m going to visit my family in Kosovo on my way back from Nairobi in October and hope to be able to bring $2000 with me; that’s enough for two university tuitions there.  If you’d like to contribute send me an email (sbforthefirstime@gmail.com) and I’ll send you my mailing address.  So I got some beautiful presents, we had a wonderful dinner, and I even survived the singing of Happy Birthday.

A little bit about that before my travelogue continues.  One of my earliest memories is my 5^th birthday party.  We were sitting at a table in the backyard (me and some friends), eating little pinwheel sandwiches that my mother had lovingly made.  And then the moment of truth; the singing of the requisite birthday song.  All went well until we got near to the end of the song.  Along with everyone else I was singing happily until the penultimate line when the words changed from “Happy Birthday to you” to “Happy Birthday dear Sylvia.”  I burst into tears and ran out of the yard.  My mother followed me and I was able to blubber out “Why are they picking on me?”  You know, I think I’ve never been quite comfortable with this song being sung to me since that time.  That said, when I heard Noam and Art singing it on the phone my heart was filled with joy.  But in a group; no thank you.

The rest of the week was filled with glorious days of hiking, reading, a little swimming, a very little shopping (yup, I still am not rejoining the consumerist world and I apologize for not doing my part for the economy), and lots of time with friends.  Indeed by Thursday two more friends – Stanley and Lita – had arrived from Philadelphia … 12 of us went to the opera on Thursday night to see The Magic Flute.  We even spent one day in an oasis of peacefulness at Ojo Caliente where there were 7 mineral hot springs and I was able to participate in an 80 minute yoga class held in a yurt.  And yes, to those of you who were kind enough to encourage me not to think too much this week, my mind has mostly been in neutral.

Back to that hike with Fran and Ed.  Fran and I haven’t seen each other for a few months so we talked – as sisters do – and brought each other up to date.  What did we talk about?  It went something like this:

“How’s your hearing these days?”

“Not good.  What about you?”

“I’m kind of frustrated with having to ask people to repeat things or simply responding to questions that weren’t asked”   What do I mean?  Someone says “Do you know where my keys are?” and I respond “Yeah, I like Caesar salad too”

“My hips ache when I’m exercising and I have arthritis in my toes.”

“I’ll see your sore hips and toe-arthritis and raise you with arthritis in all the metatarsals of my right foot.”

And so it went; from ache to ache.  Before long we realized that between the two of us we had brought enough medication to take care of a small community in Africa.  There were few medical disasters we weren’t prepared for.  With two doctor’s in the group I think we likely could have run our own surgery theatre!

These aging conversations weren’t just restricted to Fran and I.  As each new person arrived the first thing they shared with us was an update on their medical trials of the past months.  Holy crow!  Have we become the complaining old farts we complain about?  Are our lives reduced to updates on chronic illness, vision loss, hearing loss, aches and pains and struggles?  Let me be very clear about this – I’M NOT READY TO BE OLD!  After all, only yesterday I was able to do a 6 mile hike that included climbing straight up the side of a mountain because the trail had been washed out by an overflowing creek, we were lost, and all we could do was follow the arrow on our GPS which unfortunately plots your path as the crow flies regardless of the topography.  I’m still able to do 22,860 steps in a day (not bad for someone who’s aiming for 10,000 steps a day right?).

But I’m starting to wonder about all of this.  I remember when conversations were about things far more interesting than our sleeping patterns, remedies for stomach upset, or blood pressure comparisons.   Will it be all about what ails us from here on in?  Oh my, I sure hope not.

On our last day we drove into the Jemez Mountains where we had lunch in a saloon and then climbed up a short way to some natural hot springs where we relaxed as we soaked in the beauty of our surroundings.  That’s Ed and Donna along with David.

Our last evening in Santa Fe was spent with Donna, Ed, Elaine and Michael.  They prepared a fabulous meal on the BBQ (I’m going to try beer-can chicken myself later this week).  We brought not only a bottle of bubbly with us, but also a bottle of really good tequila.  Donna had never done tequila shots before; I don’t think tequila’s a particularly popular drink in Australia.  But last night she was right  into it and kept up with me shot for shot.  Now that’s the kind of aging I can get  behind; the kind where you’re wide open to new experiences and adventures.  One  of our last views of Santa Fe was this amazing double rainbow that filled the sky.

Well, they’re collecting the empty glasses and we’ll be starting our descent into Toronto soon.  My back’s a little sore from the hours in the air.  Oh my!!!