Happy Mother's Day!

Mother's Day.... that time of year when all of us mothers should be doing what we want and spending our day being pampered.

Yeah, right!

Well, I DID get to spend my day doing what I wanted -- which was enjoy the beautiful Spring weather by working outside in the yard (yeah, I know, I'm nuts -- I LOVE to weed!!), and to have my kids around me, or at least to hear from them.

I started the morning by opening my cards -- one from Jake that he left for me earlier in the week, and the other from Derek -- richly embelished with his new-found cursive writing and lots of do-dads all over the envelope. Then Kirk in California called a couple of times, wishing me Happy Mother's Day and to make sure I'm okay, and what was I planning to do, etc. etc. So sweet! It's always good to hear from him. Then Derek and I were to leave for Trinidad, Colorado to go to see Jake.

Well, I didn't want to drive up to Trinidad without hearing from Jake in case he had to work -- he's always working, it seems. So I went out into the yard and started working on our forest of weeds -- mainly the sticker ones before they dropped seeds. By 3:00 I decided to leave, hoping to at least catch Jake for dinner. So off we went.

What a day for a drive! Gorgeous, just gorgeous! We go through Eagle's Nest and Cimmaron to go to Trinidad, so the drive is always interesting. And the light always makes things look differently, too, so it always seems like a new drive.

The trees are beginning to get their leaves -- that bright tender yellow-green -- and the grasses and plants alongside of the road were definitely green! The river we follow (what is the name of that, anyway?) is super full! All of our rivers are really full this year! Birds were singing everywhere! We only saw 2 herds of buffalo outside of Cimarron this time. Last time we saw a full 3 herds. And this time we only saw a few antelope. The buffalo and the antelope are all in the Valle Vidal, where they are drilling for gas. That's where Jake is working, uh-huh. Very very controversial. Well, like he says, it's not actually in the Vidal, it's on Ted Turner's ranch. So drilling in the Vidal actually is not happening -- yet.

When we arrived at Jake's place (he has a room in a prospector friend's house), he was just going to bed! He had to be up at 4:00 a.m. The place was littered with new gold pans, lots of gold sand to pan or run through the chute, and rocks. Of course, always rocks!

The latest in rocks is some really great siderite that has absolutely perfect cubes on them! Lots of gold in them, too, according to Jake and his friend Mack. (of course there's always gold in their rocks -- you think they'd bring home rocks withOUT gold?!?). Then I had to do the tour of buckets of new rocks found on their outings. I couldn't even begin to tell you what they are -- they just looked like plain old rocks to me. But I guess these new buckets are for the crusher (Jake has a rock crusher to crush rocks, and then he puts the dirt from these crushed rocks on his shaker table to separate the different metals in the rocks).

We then went to dinner -- Tequila's in Trinidad. EVERYthing else seems to be closed on Sundays in Trinidad! I wanted to go to that little Russian restaurant in the basement of the hotel on Main Street, but it, too, was closed. Bummer. Trinidad is an interesting little town -- almost everything is made out of bricks. Trinidad used to make bricks for just about the whole country, I understand. Brick streets, brick buildings, brick walls -- you name it, it's got bricks. Right next to where Jake works are the old kilns for the bricks. They look like great big beehives made out of -- you guessed it! Bricks!

On the way back home in the dark, it was the usual vigilant drive for elk and deer. Came really close this time to hitting 2 big deer! The elk always seem to know to stay by the side of the road until you pass. But not the deer -- they just dart right out. Well, unless the elk are already in the road when you come up to them. Then it's like driving through a herd of cows -- they kind of part to let you through.

I have such a hard time driving at night any more -- especially on this drive. It's a very windy road going up the east side of the mountains, and then coming back down into Taos. And, of course, there are trees everywhere, so all I can see is that small area to the edge of the trees that my headlights light up. Between my night blindness, the animals, and then the windy roads, it's kind of like a "white knuckle" ride! But oh so beautiful... (did I mention how beautiful the trees look on this road looks when it snows at night? Ahhhh!)