Phase Two: Progress

I'm sitting in the gazebo with the sun to my back, drinking a cup of coffee, enjoying the sights and sounds and expansive view and Tim's company. This has become one of my favorite new morning rituals. I've spent many a morning looking out front doors with a cup of coffee in my hand, listening to leaf blowers and loud neighbors, looking at other people's houses, daydreaming about when this moment right here could be a regular thing for me. It does good things for the brain and body - space like this, quiet like this. At least it's doing good things for mine. The curved-billed thrasher sings a particularly nice morning song. Turns out exile isn't always so bad.

We are settling into The Hassemer Guesthouse more and more - moving chairs around, finding extra closet space, installing a bathroom door for privacy.....I should probably explain that one. When we went to Costa Rica, Tim's dad (a.k.a. "Pops") fell in love with the open bathroom attached to the master bedroom they stayed in. No door. Perhaps they have soundless bathroom experiences - I dunno. What I do know is that because of that experience the master bedroom in the guest house has an attached bathroom without a door. HAD no door. Tim installed one yesterday. We who share the back bedroom no longer have to use the bathroom in the hallway that DOES have a door. It's beyond me how a man who thinks it's "uncivilized" to set a dinner table without a spoon at every plate thinks it's perfectly acceptable to have a bathroom without a door. Anyway, my point is that we are settling in quite nicely. It sort of feels like very luxurious camping. The "tent" is small and kinda awkward but once you step outside you're in nature's paradise.

Tim and I took our first scouting trip into Durango last Thursday through Saturday and had a great time. It's big enough that there's a lot of options when it comes to grocery stores and restaurants but small enough that locals encounter friends when walking down the main drag in town. The population is large enough that woodworking and repair will be in demand and it's definitely touristy enough to bring in plenty of business for people who want to impulse buy a smaller, packable handcrafted piece of art...perhaps a jewelry box with a new shiny pair of earrings to put in it. There are a lot of art galleries. We have several numbers to call today for commercial rental listings - one of the perfect-size spots in an incredibly good location was already taken but it was $1250 a month which is great news. We are looking for a spot well traveled but off Main St. I do know you can rent a 3 bedroom house on 2 acres of land for about $1500 a month so I don't think finding a place to live for a reasonable price will be a problem. Some of the people we encountered were so nice it was almost disorienting. A clerk in the grocery store stopped us to make sure we were finding everything ok and was so friendly telling me where the bottled water was that Tim and I actually looked at each other weird when she walked away. Jaded city folk.

Places as far off the beaten path as Medanales, NM offer some unique character traits. Driving down the "highway" (i.e. two-lane road), it looks to me like every "town" (i.e. a few houses here and there, maybe a business or two) starts with a couple of burned down and/or abandoned buildings. Apparently when you have this much space, when something is dilapidated the owners just sorta walk away. No need to rebuild...why waste all that money when you can just do something else on another giant plot of land? Espanola - the local "town" 15 minutes down the road - is difficult for me to describe. Try this: take Bakersfield, remove the white trash, leave the hispanic population and add a spattering of Native Americans and you've got something close to Espanola. A local bar/liquor store (yes, both) called "Saints and Sinners" (yes, really) made last week's front page when some guy got shot in the head in the parking lot. We stopped at a gas station/overpriced grocery store down the highway. I sat in the passenger seat and stared at the trailer home next door that looked like something straight out of Deliverance. It even had a crooked self-made wooden porch with a beat up leather recliner chair on it. One of my favorite scenes is down the "highway" where a car from the 1950s has been sitting in the mesa for so long it's half-buried in mud. I photographed it years ago but I'll have to do it again.

There is also no amount of lotion to make up for how dry it is here and there's no amount of sweeping that can keep house clean when you're completely surrounded by dirt.

On the other hand, there's a spa down the road called Ojo Caliente, framed by classically beautiful New Mexico rocks and landscape, sporting delicious sangria, that is just $18 for a day pass. When Diana was still here we met there with Heather and her friend and spent a day lounging and catching up. We are heading into Albuquerque Tuesday to hang out with Marisa and talk about some home renovating she wants Tim to do. We'll stop in Santa Fe on the way back to see Adam, Dionne and the kids who are getting really big now. It's been awesome seeing people I don't usually get to spend much time with and I'm excited for more good times and adventures to come.

Till then, love you, miss you.

Hitting golf balls into the arroyo. I'm taking this picture from.......

here! Coffee time in the gazebo.

The view I face when I make jewelry. 

A day of golf in Durango last Friday. We happened to hit the course on the first day of the season. You'll like it here, Brian.

Our fancy new bathroom door with a glass pane installed above that lets the light through from the bathroom window. I took this picture from bed and the toilet is just on the other side of the sink. Can you say awkward?

The door to the left leads to the Guest House living room, the door to the right leads to the garage a.k.a. temporary wood shop. The gazebo is directly behind me, as is The Big House.