I Smelled the Pinon Wood and Lost My Mind

I spent the first part of the week in Santa Fe (one of my favorite places).  I wish I could bottle the smell: part pinon wood, part . . . oh, who cares what else, have you smelled pinon wood?

I was in New Mexico for work, and it was a pretty productive, interesting meeting. The meeting did not start until 1pm on Monday, but in order to get there in time I flew out on Sunday. This meant that I had some free time in NM.  My colleague and I decided to check out Tent Rocks. It was beautiful and totally worth visiting, even though it made us a bit late for the start of the meeting.

I foolishly took only my old camera (the one that freezes up when I try to zoom in).  I was not sure I would get to go for a hike, and I was not sure it would be worthwhile to lug my SLR all over.  That was a mistake. (Which Chris helpfully pointed out to me just now.) Had I taken the good camera, the above picture would not have those weird smudgy marks on it, but I will just let that go now.

As happens almost every time I travel, I felt an initial surge of love for my destination. Looking at (other people's) pictures of Tent Rocks, this is probably easy to understand. But I am not talking about my experience in the great outdoors. I am talking about the first 20 minutes of my drive to Santa Fe. While I was on I-25, not yet outside of Albuquerque.

Driving north out of town, I recalled the first time I visited New Mexico ten years ago. I remembered bringing Chris there for the first time, and a more recent visit during which we accidentally conquered the highest peak in the state. My heart swelled and I felt simultaneous wistful nostalgia and joy.  A little crazy, I know, especially because I still had 40+ minutes of driving on an increasingly dark highway where the minimum speed is higher than Oregon's top allowed.

By the time I got to my hotel my head had cleared some (thanks in no small part to the radio selections, which included a Spanish language version of Singing in the Rain and a few minutes of Christian broadcasters talking about why people should get involved in electoral politics).  I had a fantastic dinner and worked hard for most of the next two days. But I still have a schoolgirl-crush on New Mexico, and went so far as to inadvertently suggest to the state's Human Services Secretary that she should hire me. Really, it came out wrong, I was just trying to explain the warmth of my feelings toward New Mexico. In any case, her state government is under a hiring freeze, so I got back on the plane this afternoon without having to figure out how to tell Chris that we need to move. His skin gets so dry, after all.