Spending Time on the Road with Lee

Who do you spend the most time with?

For sure the person I now spend the most time with is Lee, my spouse. When he lived at the ranch and I spent weekdays in Austin, I may have spent more time with Anita, who shared a couple of dwellings with me. I now only see her once or twice a week and Lee every day. Good thing we get along 90% of the time

Yeah, we both get grumpy sometimes. Lee is easily frustrated and snaps. I’m conflict avoidant. But we manage. And we know when to give each other space.

Anyway, we embarked on one of our periodic road trips today, going west this time. We are headed to Sedona, Arizona, where there’s now a condo we can go to. I’m pretty excited about all the nature I can see.

Today we got as far as Clovis, New Mexico. the drive over was filled with oil wells, windmills, and cattle. There are many mega-dairy farms that have to generate massive amounts of methane gas and poop. I feel sad for the cows who never see grass or get to walk around. At least our local beef cattle get to be happy before they get harvested.

More fun was getting to see many big quarter horse ranches and some beautiful horses. Just like at home, we also saw lots of horses in trailers, all saddled up and ready to go work. Modern cowboys work that way.

One of the prettiest towns we went through was Post, where Cameron’s former City Manager went when he got frustrated. It’s quite pretty and has a big lake. Clovis is also pretty, probably because we went through the nicest part of town to find the hotel we are in. They are like oases in the desert.

We did see some pretty geological formations in the hilly area we went through before it got REAL flat. It may be flatter than east-central Illinois (the flattest place I ever lived).

I did go outside and find two new birds, even though it was very windy outside. But hey, I was NOT covered with sweat! Dry heat! The birds were Say’s Phoebe and the Curve-billed Thrasher. Both are common here but not where I live. Cool!

I’m looking forward to seeing more new terrain and plants tomorrow.