Before everyone turned up Stuart and I managed to do our traditional stocking opening session in bed followed by presents under the tree. We both did very well – thank you for all our gifts. Both of us managed to put on our Christmas clothing before the group arrived.
Saturday, 25 December 2010
Christmas Day
Before everyone turned up Stuart and I managed to do our traditional stocking opening session in bed followed by presents under the tree. We both did very well – thank you for all our gifts. Both of us managed to put on our Christmas clothing before the group arrived.
Thursday, 25 November 2010
Heniz 57
We had another of MaryBeth's Pot Luck’s also including a Pampered Chef portion. Pampered Chef is like a Tupperware party and they sell looks of cooking things to you. Obviously I wasn’t going to buy anything but came away with over $100 of stuff I am not sure we really need!! The party then went on to the Pot Luck part essentially bring along a dish and we all eat. Last time Stuart made curry and homemade naan but this time, keeping along the lines of Scottish cuisine, he made 'Cullen Skink'. Obviously it is not too difficult to make back home but finding smoked fish is difficult, so he broke out the smoker again and smoked his own fish. He used Tilapia instead of Haddock, because again it wasn't available. It was fine and I think everyone seemed to enjoy it.
The next night we were out with Bill and Marah to the ‘American Chinese’. It was anything but American Chinese. It is something they do with a group of friends some of wh

Since the weather has cooled off and the mosquitoes we managed to get in a game of Disc Golf – I don’t think we have played for over 8 months – terrible! I won :)
On a school night we went to see Cirque du Soleil - Alegria (http://www.cirquedusoleil.com/en/shows/alegria/) at the Toyota Centre with Robert and friends. He kindly organised tickets and surprised me when he said we were going later in the week as I had entirely forgotten about it. I have never bee


I picked up my new car!! I was a little sad about handing over Misty to the garage dealer until he gave me the keys to Iggy the VW Tiguan with many more toys to play with!
On Saturday I had a work function – it was a Chevron do to celebrate project sanction the Jack and St. Malo Fields. Maersk is in Jack in the Gulf of Mexico. The party was held on the east side of downtown towards Pasadena. The last part up to the restaurant is in a shady part of town and actually overlooks the


New Mexico Roadtrip - Part 3
For breakfast we headed to a small cafe we had heard about on "Diners, Drive-ins and Dives" called Telcolte Cafe . Stuart had the 'Huevos Yucatecos' - a corn tortilla layered with black beans, two eggs, Swiss and feta cheese, pico de gallo, potatoes, fried bananas and of course New Mexico Green chile. I on the other hand had Weightwatchers playing on my mind so a poach

We had an early start because they were a lot of sights to see. First on the list was to visit Los Alamos and the National Laboratory Science Museum. The road wraps up the side of the hills and when you finally arrive on the plateau. Los Alamos was founded as a secret planned community to provide housing for the employees of the Manhattan Project during World War II. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Alamos,_New_Mexico. The museum was small but good and would certainly recommend it if you are passing – it was interesting and shocking. On the fun note you get to try out the Geiger cou
Next stop was to visit the Bandelier National Monument which is an archaeological site of ancient Pueblo cliff dwellings. The park road winds down so you are at the base of the cliffs. A short walk in you start to see holes in the cliff face. The path takes you right up to the cliffs and some if the holes have wooden ladd


We had a quick lunch in the car before moving on to our next stop was to look at the Valles Caldera a 12 mile diameter hole left by a super-volcano over 50 thousand years ago. It was so big that you couldn’t



Sunday
Breakfast again and "Diners, Drive-ins and Dives" recommendation. This time we went to place called the Tune-up Cafe . This morning Stuart had the Chile Relleno and I h

The day before we missed one of our stops b


Back to the car on time, we then drove a long way out west to the San Juan Basin Badlands to see some more hoodoos. It was about a three hours’ drive and the last part was on dirt roads even though the



Once again it was after 6pm before we were back at the hotel. We had now realised you got cheaper parking around the corner at the local car park than paying the extortionate valet parking fee. Since it was Halloween there were plenty of Halloween revellers while we looked for somewhere to eat.
Monday
Monday was a very early start to pack up and drive to Albuquerque for a hot air balloon ride. It was still dark (and cold) while we were getting the balloon ready. Inside the ball


1) A Cessna landing –low winds conditions, smooth landing
2) Boeing landing – it goes down but jumps a couple of times along the ground, but

3) fighter jet landing – the most extreme landing in high winds and involves you hunkering right down below the edge of the basket, hanging on for dear life as you are certainly going over while being dragged along the ground!

The drive home was a lot longer, about 14 hours. We passed lots of very long goods trains, saw more tarantulas, tumble-weed and there was a huge lightning storm just past Dallas that was lighting up

Sunday, 14 November 2010
New Mexico Roadtrip - Part 2

We were looking for Candy Rock a type of rhyolite which has coloured bands that resemble candy. We could easily see where we were to head so parked up the car and set off towards the stripy hill wit


The second 'rock-knocking' site of the day was further up the road we looked at botryoidal hematite and manganese deposits. The deposit was in an old quarry and the road goi


Once again it was quite a long day of driving and we only just arrived at our hotel in Santa Fe as the sun was going down. We were staying at 'The Inn at Loretto'


For dinner we went to close by Mexican restaurant inside a covered courtyard. We had freshly prepared guacamole made at our table to start with and surprised the girl making it by asking for extra chilies in it! While we were waiting between courses a magician came to do some close up magic tricks at our table. He


Saturday, 13 November 2010
New Mexico Roadtrip - Part 1


Now Thursday morning we drove the final hour into New Mexico, with the sun rising behind us, for our breakfast at the Blue House Bakery & Cafe Carlsbad. This place had come recommended on the internet and I would certainly recommend it – we had a fine Breakfast Burrito each!
First stop of the day was Carlsbad Caverns (One of the World’s largest caverns) - http://www.nps.gov/cave/index.htm. We missed the Ranger Guided tour of the Kings Palace Cave, to my disgruntlement, but visited the Big Room cave by ourselves. This is reportedly the largest cave in the Western Hemisphere and the Big Room was certainly big!
Geology lecture 1: The cave was dissolved along cracks and faults in the limestone rock by sulphuric acid. The limestone was laid down about two-hundred and fifty million years ago, as part of a reef complex along the edge of an inland sea. Seventeen to twenty million years ago, the ancient reef rocks that had been buried under thousands of feet of younger rocks began to lift upwards. Tectonic forces pushed the buried rock layers up and erosion wore away softer minerals to expose the ancient reef as the Guadalupe Mountains. Deep in the basin, brine originating from oil and gas deposits and rich in hydrogen sulphide was forced into the limestone at the edge of the basin. When this brine encountered oxygen-rich rainwater moving down through the rock, it created sulphuric acid. This acid dissolved the limestone creating cave passages. As the Guadalupe Mountains continued to lift up, the water drained out of the cave allowing fresh water to percolate through and leave minerals on the ceiling, walls, and floors that
we know as cave decorations.
I learnt a new word 'speleothem', a collective term for cave decorations such as stalactites, stalagmites, flowstone, etc. Unfortunately most of our photos didn’t come out great but it was really impressive (and cold) down there. I would recommend walking in and taking the lift out as we did. If you get there at sun set you can watch all the bats leaving from the cave entrance.
Next we went on to White Sands - (The world's largest gypsum sand dune field) - http://www.nps.gov/whsa/index.htm. We set off for White Sands and thought i


As we descended from the Sacramento Mountains we could see the vastness (275 square miles) of the White Sands shining in the sunlight. It was like the ocean. Because of the delay in getting to White Sands and still having quite a long drive to get to our hotel for the night we didn't spend much time at White Sands and only had a short time to walk around the dunes. But it was spectacular and exactly what I wanted to see.
Geology lecture 2: The common mineral gypsum, a hydrous form of calcium sulfate (CaS04. 2H20) is rarely found in the form of sand because it is soluble in water. The gypsum that forms the White Sands was deposited at the bottom of a shallow sea 250 million years ago. Eventually turned into stone, these gypsum-bearing marine deposits were uplifted into a giant dome 70 million years ago when the Rocky Mountains were formed. Beginning 10 million years ago, the centre of this dome began to collapse and create the Tularosa Basin. The remaining sides o
f the original dome formation now form the San Andres and Sacramento mountain ranges that ring the basin.
We were heading for Truth or Consequences but on the way passed Hatch - The Chilie Capitol of the World - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatch,_New_Mexico. I knew Stuart would like to see it so we stop and took some photos of the chilie fields and checked outt a


Finally we arrived at Truth or Consequences, approximately 1300 miles after we set off the night before! The town was originally named Hot Springs, however, the city changed its name to Truth or Consequences in 1950 after a radio competition!
We stayed at the Sierra Grande Lodge http://www.sierragrandelodge.com. We first got asked – ‘What time would you like me to run your mineral bath?’ We actually decided to take the mineral bath – run from the local hot spring in the morning, but when we got to our room it was beautiful with a huge sunken bath in the room. The bed was so high you had to take a running jump at it and overall it was a lovely place (highly recommend it). We had a quick wash and went out for dinner before everywhere closed up and had an alright dinner, but since we didn’t want a lengthy affair it worked for us. We were in bed by 9:30pm and did not wake up until the alarm went off signifying it was time for our mineral bath. The mineral bath was steamy hot in a private room! And we had an hour of getting seriously ‘prune-i-fied’ before heading to breakfast. Breakfast was also great as they bake all their own br
ead, rolls and muffins (I even wrapped up one in a napkin to eat later :) ).
Just an interest fact, nearby Truth or Consequences they are building 'Spaceport America', the worlds first purpose-built commercial spaceport http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaceport_America