Pondering the world

siesta in Old Town

This is the calico kitty who lives up the street at the store called Blackstone.

It's obviously a cool and comfy place for a nap.

Steve is also obviously having a good time with the camera on his new Blackberry.

The Range Cafe

The Range Cafe is an Albuquerque (Bernalillo, actually) institution.  Good down-home fare with standard New Mexico favorites as well.

You'd think a place in New Mexico with a name like "The Range" would have something to do with cowboys, right?  Well, marginally.  Maybe it started out that way.  But what they have now is a wonderful collection of miniature stoves and ranges hung all over the wall behind the cashier and the pastry case.  Gives "Home on the Range" a whole new meaning...

with three locations to serve you a "darn good meal!"

The Range Cafe
925 Camino del Pueblo
Bernalillo, New Mexico

4200 Wyoming Blvd. NE
Albuquerque, New Mexico

2200 Menaul Blvd. NE
Albuquerque, New Mexico

what I pass by every day on my way to work

not your normal first day of summer vacation

Never mind that last week it was 94 and we were all in shorts.

Today was the first day of summer vacation for the school kids... and we had snow.

I swiped this picture from one of the news station websites.  I myself would have taken a lovely photo of the Sandia Mountains covered with snow, except it was snowing and we couldn't see them.

Down here in the valley it was cold and it's been rainy for two days.  I don't think it ever got above 57 degrees today.  I got soaking wet during a rainstorm at Costco this morning, and this afternoon it hailed. 

On the other hand, the plants are loving all the extra water.  Once it warms up again, they'll be leaping out of the ground.  I had planned to mow the lawn today....  oh, well.

winter arrived yesterday

On Saturday it was an unseasonal 88 degrees.  By late afternoon the wind had picked up, a front moved in, and the temperature plummeted.  The high on Sunday was 53 degrees as the wind continued to blow.  When the wind finally dropped, it went below freezing last night.  Today was a little warmer than predicted, but it didn't get any higher than 60.  We may bounce up and down again with a few warmer days, but fall is quickly heading into winter.

On a more wintry note, they've already had a dusting of snow in Santa Fe and Taos, and on an errand yesterday I could see snow falling at the base of the mountains.  It's amazing how that makes visitors freak out, and they suddenly decide that they won't make that day trip to Santa Fe because "it's snowing!"  Well, no.  It was snowing a little, but it melted immediately.  It will take another month or so for the ground around here to really start freezing enough for the snow to stick.

In the meantime, the ski areas and those working in water management are hoping for an early, heavy snowfall year.