white turquoise! - saturday, 6/24/06

it was beginning to dawn on me that morning that my new mexico adventure was drawing to an end. facing going home, getting in the car and driving to atlanta was not something i relished. i didn't want to leave linda and chuck, new mexico, or my new found independence and freedom. but i got up and packed up the car and we went on into town to do a little last minute shopping. pam wanted to get a colorado license plate from the place i had gotten mine.

the shops weren't open yet. linda and chuck went ahead of us, with all of us to meet up at the flea market outside of santa fe. pam and i wandered back to the mineral springs and got water out of it. fortunately, i scraped off some of the mineral material and put it in my bottle, because when we got home, we discovered that was the stuff that made the water smell so bad. while it smelled, we still kept rubbing it on our skin and i splashed some back into my hair. for the two days after i had doused my hair it in, my hair looked acceptable to me! we took a couple of pictures sitting next to the springs, and then went into the shop when it opened.

i wandered around looking over stuff again while pam got her plate, and then we discovered...jewelry! we had seen white turquoise after our taos introduction with the earrings, but hadn't seen anything affordable that either of us wanted. every place we went we were told that the white turquoise was really hot and they sold out of it. at this place, he had a couple of pendants and rings as well. pam and i both ended up buying white horse turquoise pendants (i bought mine for my mother for xmas) and i bought a ring of buffalo mountain turquoise. when i got home, i noticed that the brown streak through it looks like a kokopelli! we also both bought old pennies that had the dates of each of our parents' births on them.

we headed out of colorado, crossing once again through chama and down to abiqui, where georgia o'keeffe had lived. we crossed over the continental divide and back into new mexico, this time stopping to take pictures of the "welcome to new mexico" sign. there were some beautiful buttes outside of abiqui, and we stopped at bode's market so pam could pee. we had talked at one point of going up to oja caliente to their mineral springs, but we had to save that for another trip. this road we were on took us through different territory, and we ended up in espanola, home of the low rider car, and then down to the sante fe flea market.

chuck and linda had already been shopping, and we met up. pam and linda bought cute tops and i bought green chile powder from hatch, new mexico, which is supposed to be the best place to get chile powder (it is. when i got home, i used it and it is wonderful!). we also bought 2 strings of turquoise and red coral to make bracelets with. each strand was $11 each, and i wish now i had bought more. the turquoise was all different types and colors and already drilled with holes. i ate a pork adovadi burrito at the flea market, although i couldn't get it all down. the wind was kicking up and it looked like we were in for a storm, but we never got it.

chuck and linda hit the road before us, and we finally left, headed for the turquoise trail and the road back to madrid!