happened to be cycling through the small town of buena vista just in time for the july 4th parade. streams of people, horses, trucks, dogs, all sorts of groups from the hill-billy music reunion to the league of women voters, all throwing sweets to the crowds, kids scrambling in the sunshine. great atmosphere! then on…

left susan’s after a great few days – horse-riding! Conversation! Food! Hot-springs! – reluctantly, on the 2nd july (“stay just one more day! come rafting with us!”) and, reunited with credit cards thanks to chris in uk, base-camp manager extraordinaire, headed off towards salida. never trust the locals when they say you’ll have a tail…

woke hungry! ate the cinamon roll. beautiful ride smelling of hot pine and sage to pagosa springs where had huge plate of heuvos rancheros and looked at indian jewellery. a good job that no credit card as i rather fell for an inlaid silver bracelet – just what i need! – at a mere $400….

back to santa fe in tom’s plane rather than the neighbour’s, a beautiful little twin-prop turbo. rocky sat in the aisle quite comfortably with the panniers belted into seats. flight back was fabulous. huge desert vistas, near ship-rock at the meeting of colorado, new mexico, utah and arizona. flying higher – 21 thousand feet –…

wonderful couple of days. great evening at neighbours’ yesterday. when we arrived at john and anne’s, just us and them. i was imagining a sit-down formal dinner. then another couple arrived, then a car-load, then another. cars kept arriving. soon the house was full of three generations, wandering inside and out, drinking beers, cokes and…

great hospitality from jonathan and mela, including a wonderful bed outside under a car-port-like structure illuminated with fairy lights. lay in bed listening to the crickets and watching the sky light up with distant lightening. and MARMITE for breakfast!!! was hoping to meet up with an old friend, tom buffalo, in a few days time….

finally left the double-day, waved off by hotel staff, back out into albuquerque lunchtime traffic. attempting to follow directions to avoid busy roads “i live here and i wouldn’t cycle on that…” cost me at least an hour when “cut thru university” turned out to mean a road called university rather than the university itself….

sumptious eggs benedict breakfast and then walked across the plaza to the mayor’s office. 11 floors up, huge views of albuquerque, a suite of open plan offices interspersed with sofas and enormous chinese vases. over 200 ‘cool city’ mayors across the USA have basically said, the hell with bush, if he isn’t going to do…