On the road again, July 09

Hi friends!

We left Austin and made it to Lubbock Tuesday night - 6 hours in the car was the max we could bear with our ever-vocal monkeychild and our other travel companion, hotstinkybreatheverywhere Gomez. On the drive through West Texas we were treated to the sight of perhaps the world’s only “Nothing but Smokes” store. Yah, that'll show 'em!! In Lubbock we stayed directly across from Texas Tech at the Woodrow House in a caboose!? The caboose was not bad other than the overpowering Glade plugin that I wrapped in paper towel and put in the yard upon arrival (cabooses do not have a lot of functioning windows via which caboose-aeration can occur). The next day was a relatively much-longer-seeming 8 hours to Taos. During some point on this leg I became obsessed with the Mayan Calendar and 2012, reading about it on my iPhone and texting Katie about it. Yay New Mexico!!!

We spent two days in Taos at a lovely B&B (Casa Gallina) where everything is Fair Trade, organic, eco-etc. – they even had chickens! The little casita was gorgeous, totally "New Mexican" style A++. Taos is an uber-kooky little town, with at least 40% of the population I saw resembling a Dead show parking lot that was space-transported into the desert for 30 years with only psilocybin for sustenance. And of course: smoking tourists, very poor Indians, artists, and rich people. I took a 7 mile run along a huge Gorge and Marc did a long ride on the South Rim Trail where he got very lost. Sky practiced dressing Gomez in his favorite dress. On the way out of town we passed acres and acres of Earthships – def checking out on the way back through. We are on the road to Breck now, tomorrow Marc races the Firecracker 50 and I am going to do the relatively much-less exciting 10k beforehand. My butt is pancake flat from sitting in this car and I am fantasizing about gym workouts that surely I won’t have time to do. Jess and Lisa are going to stay with us in Breck, and Kyle and Maria are going to be there too, Kyle’s also racing. P.S., I am so sick of/from Marc’s driving and surely he is so sick of my bitching about it! Almost there!!!!!!!!!