Distance

When we first leave our home state of Indiana or Michigan or California, we don't think much about the risk we're running of never living there again. And we don't think of the distance we're putting between ourselves and the people there. At least I didn't give that distance much thought. Now I think about distance a lot. I say I want to start a commune, but what I mean is that I want the distance from my front door to yours to be a few steps. Then, naturally, I would borrow eggs from you, you would drop by unannounced and end up staying for dinner, Chad would fix your bikes and maybe help you with your math homework.

In this great commune-in-my-dreams, we live right next door to my Aunt Jan, my cousins Amy, Beth and Brent and my first cousins once removed Josh and Ally. We really could do this if we moved to Michigan (and I can tell you that Chad is keeping Beth and Brent's basement in mind in case of economic disaster).

Of course we'd prefer to move all our family, friends and blog-readers to New Mexico. But we were the ones who left our homelands, so we can't expect to convince y'all to relocate. Sometimes we do convince you to vacation here.

Josh called me "tour guide extraordinaire." In one day, we did cliff dwellings at Tsankawi and Bandelier and ate dinner on the plaza in Santa Fe.

Another day was zoo, aquarium, botanical gardens.

We took the tram to Sandia Peak.

And we enjoyed Explora, Albuquerque's plaza, and New Mexican food. Ally discovered a passion for sopapillas.

Chad was initially considered a suspicious character by Ally and Josh. They didn't know him well, and they needed a suspect for a mystery they were inventing. But he won them over by climbing in and out of caves, wrestling, and insisting on being called "Captain Cool."

I wish Michigan and New Mexico were just next door to each other!