you, too, can listen to the soundtrack of "pam and ellen's excellent adventure"...

and then there was the music...

for every trip, there has to be music. it started on our first day when we turned on the local PBS station and got a shock. KANW is not your typical PBS station...and for the next couple of days we listened to new mexico music. that first day was father's day, so we spent many hours listening to dedications to the dead and living daddys. funny thing about friends...i had no idea that this type of music would appeal to pam. would never have given it a thought, and she seemed to enjoy it...a lot...and what else was amazing was the fact that this station carried so far. we listened to it until we were out of taos on tuesday and on to the jicarillo apache reservation. while we were listening to it they kept advertising albums of the music they were playing. when i got home, i ordered the most recent one and now i can sit in my computer room and listen to albuquerque's local mexican yokels singing hank williams tunes in spanish! in case anyone is interested, you can get the KANW music soundtracks here: http://www.kanw.com/store_music.html

once KANW became a static-y memory, we tuned into yet another PBS station somewhere around dulce, new mexico and listened to interviews of individuals who were running for tribal council on the jicarillo apache indian reservation. it was interesting to listen to them discuss the issues on the rez, and it seemed to give both of us reason to think about a lot of things, not the least of which is how lucky we are.

that station faded out, and we were headed out of the rez. i put on the first of the cd's i had dragged halfway across the united states to listen to. this one became the music-to-listen-to-while-exploring-indian-country cd. it is "the sacred fire" by nicholas gunn. it fit the landscape and the mood just perfectly, and we listened to it over and over until wednesday when we headed over to pagosa springs. more on nicholas gunn: http://www.nicholasgunn.com/

pam only conked out on me one time the whole trip, and that was in the stretch between durango and pagosa springs. i decided that this was a good time for me to pull out my homemade christian music cd, which i had wanted to listen to, but was too embarassed to do in front of pam. another sort of secret: i had become a closet christian music addict. however, there is something about admitting at my age that you are liking this kind of music that is scary. i should have known better and trusted her a little. things were going pretty well...she was asleep, i was humming along, and then we hit some sort of electrical vortex that sucked all of the energy out of the cd player. it just stopped on song 5. i was not a happy camper. and then i began to cuss. a lot. loudly. and then there was a construction backup of traffic, and pam was waking up to a car slowing down and the driver heating up. "DAMMIT! SONOFABITCH! SHIT! I WANT TO HEAR SONG FIVE!!!!" no small amount of irony there...cussing a blue streak because i can't listen to a christian music cd. we had plenty of time to fart around with it while waiting to get through the construction site and i got it to go again, only to stop at song 8...sigh. the interesting thing about this was that just prior to the cd dying, my cell phone gave one beep. i thought this was an isolated incident until it happened again with a different cd on our way back to albuquerque from pagosa springs. the only thing we could figure is that either aliens were trying to listen to christian music, god was testing my blood pressure at a high altitude, or there is some sort of weird electrical blackhole in the mountains of north central new mexico. in all cases, the cell phone beeped first, heralding the imminent departure of the music...

pam commented that she never knows the names of songs or who the artists are. so for you, old gal, listed below are those people on the cd. (i gave her the copy of the one we listened to on the trip.) one notation, however. the last song, "kind and generous" popped up in the shuffle of my ipod as our plane was descending through a thunderstorm into richmond. it was the final coincidence of many in the trip, and i pulled the headset off and handed it to pam so she could listen to the words, which pretty much summed up how i felt about our excellent adventure as it was ending.

You in Me - Big Daddy Weave
Hallelujah (Your Love Is Amazing) - Brian Doerksen
Your Name Is Holy - Brian Doerksen / O'Connell
Trading my Sorrows - Darrell Evans
Now that You're near -Hillsong
Stronger Than - Hillsong
Come Now is the Time to Worship -Hillsongs
You're Worthy of My Praise -John Tesh
That's Why We Praise Him -Lisa Bevill/Maranatha! Singers
Ancient of Days -Northminster Church band
Lord, I Lift Your Name on High -Northminster Church band
Lord Reign In Me -Tim Hughes
I Want To Know What Love Is - Tina Arena
Grace Like Rain -Todd Agnew
Only A God Like You -Tommy Walker
Hallelujah, (Your Love is Amazing) -Matt Redmon
Kind and Generous -Northminster Church band

missing music: chuck's homemade mix of music from the day as well as "the little mermaid." i enjoyed being serenaded by the jerry orbach of the southwest.