Taos to Albuquerque

Josh and I left David and Elaine this morning and headed to Albuquerque. We took the scenic road... it wasn't that scenic but Josh pulled over numerous times to take photos! It had snowed during the night; I love the little dusting of snow over all of the trees.

On our way to Albuquerque we talked to Josh's brother, Zack, who goes to law school at Indiana. He told us that we should meet him in Chicago on Friday, so we started to think about changing our plans and heading north! We're supposed to be coming home in a week or so, but maybe our plans will change...?

We stopped in Santa Fe, which had a neat little downtown area where we stopped for coffee and pastries. An ordinance passed in the 1950's that said that all buildings must exhibit a Spanish Territorial or Pueblo style of architecture, and that was definitely present in the historic downtown area.

Our host, Katherine, was kind of bizarre on the phone, and we understood why when we arrived at her house. Her two adult daughters were there, along with their four young children, one of their husbands, and a family friend. We also met their "permanent Couch Surfer," Doug... we thought it was a joke, but they had practically adopted a Couch Surfer who was traveling through in January. Josh and I got to talk to him for a while and his stories were crazy! He was from New York and had basically been homeless after being kicked out of his house when he was 16. He and some friends were making their way to California, but when he met the family in Albuquerque, he decided to stay. It really sounds like his life is turning around thanks in part to Katherine and her husband, Bob. Definitely a neat story!

Katherine served salad and ravioli for dinner; it was nice to eat with such a big family! After dinner, all of the children and grandchildren went home, and Katherine, Bob, Doug, Josh and I watched TV for a while. It was bizarre to watch reality TV shows... Josh and I haven't watched anything like that in a long time!

Our high for the day was seeing Santa Fe because it was such a neat city, especially with the building codes that keep all of the buildings looking historic. The low was definitely forgetting our awesome pillows in Taos! We had to buy new pillows and they are just not the same. Our "ho" was meeting Doug; he's the same age as Josh but has had such a different life!