travel ...

Yes, I know it's the semester - but I have two course releases (so I'm not teaching this semester) and plan to be in New Mexico for another ten days or so ... so that I can try to write.  Actually, it'll largely be Zoom meetings, at this rate ... Today was one of those days of travel that was beyond fraught and complicated... I had to fly from Burbank because of complicated car logistics, which meant changing in Las Vegas, which I hate and loathe and detest ... not least because this time I heard the announcement, the last call for a flight leaving for Santa Fe - I didn't know there were such things from there.  

Two hours later - my flight to Albuquerque was a little bumpy ... monsoon clouds from the air ...

but I realized if I caught an (expensive) taxi to the Railrunner station, I could make the 4.22 train up to Santa Fe.  Hmmm.  That train was canceled - the down train to Belen had apparently been belching ominous clouds of black smoke, and never re-emerged (Alice couldn't come and collect, since she was supervising the slow, slow, slow replacement of our A/C).

Eventually a train appeared, an hour and a half late... View of the Sandias, looking like an ancient photo ...

and water tower - I could go on and on, since this is one of my favorite train rides, but by the time I was eventually home, I might just as well have got in the car and driven - it would only have taken an hour or so longer.