Birthday drive

I show you lots of beautiful sunsets, here is what mother nature gave me for my birthday yesterday - a spectacular sunRISE!

I happened to be awake at sunrise to receive this gift because we had a 7 hour drive ahead of us and wanted to get on the road.   We tried to take care of all the packing before hand, but there are always more things to do at the last minute.  I liked Laurel's comment yesterday about liking to have her big wheeled suitcase following along behind her!

To take the sting out of getting up so early, Dave stopped at Benson donuts for a mobile second cup treat.     A most excellent birthday donut!

I couldn't resist just one quick bite....

It was a rather grey, windy day but we enjoyed it nonetheless.  The cloud formations, grey on grey, were ever changing and very interesting.    We drove past groves (is that the correct word?) of pecan, walnut and pistachio trees.

lenticulars above a winter bare nut grove

We took a short cut through the tiny (almost nonexistent) town of Nutt and through Hatch, New Mexico.   Hatch is the largest producer of Hatch Chili's and we saw many shops and road side stands selling ristras made of these colorful dried peppers.    Fields of red stretched along route 26.

Jesse called and sang Happy Birthday to me, followed by a sweet call from Erin.  I'm a lucky woman.

Spits of rain accompanied the strong winds as we approached Albuquerque.  The sky was very dark and we could see snow falling heavily on the Manzano Mountains to our east.

We got into our hotel later than we'd planned and we were whipped.   We were supposed to have dinner with friends here but tentatively rescheduled our visit to the return trip.   The dogs were wonderful on the long, confining trip and we decided to stay in the room with them and we shared a sumptuous take out dinner from Applebees instead!

Today we'll continue our drive to Santa Fe.    Winter Storm Warnings there - we're dreaming of a White Christmas!

"LaQuinta" Lewis loves him a good hotel room bed