Theresa has the best little house ever!

Zoey and I drove the four hours down scenic I-25 to visit Theresa in Santa Fe over the weekend. The title is aggressively honest, for she truly lives in a wonderful "casita, fortuitously located in a beautiful spot on the side of the foothills of the Sangre de Christos amid deliciously-smelling pinon pines.

It's adobe, of course. Theresa said something about it being a law to build only in adobe. But it works in Santa Fe, crafting an aura of uniform individuality, on a city scale. It's like if you had a town that was only full of indie-rock kids who came from very, very wealthy families. It helps that the city is located in a gorgeous part of the country. The hilly terrain provides fabulous views at every turn, and many of the houses have picture windows reflecting the sun. I can just imagine waking up and drinking coffee on their decks, breathing in the good air.

Theresa's front porch doesn't have a view of distant mountains, being the casita on the property of a larger, more expensive main house. She still has a great front porch, made of large flagstones. It sits in front of the picture window in her bedroom. Yes, behind that large window is her bed. She can wake up and watch the birds fight over the birdseed in the feeder that hangs from the branches of one of the many pine trees. Her front "yard" has an unpaved circle-ish driveway that slopes down to the dirt road that leads to the property. In the middle is a hundred-year-old ponderosa pine that holds court over all the other flora in the area. In addition to the pines, there's a lot of yellow-tipped chimesa and cholla cactus. And rocks, lots and lots of rocks. Zoey loved all the rocks.

Off to the left of the porch was a garden-area surrounded by landscaping pebbles--Zoey's favorite spot. She spent a lot of time picking up handfuls of rocks and counting them out. If you go behind the house, there are some stairs that go up the hill behind and halfway up the house to a pathway that leads to the paved driveway of the main house. I say halfway up the house, because part of the casita is below ground. The windows in her living room and kitchen pop out at ground level. It's very cool, especially when one of her cats is hanging out in front of the window.

The path to the main house crosses over a little wooden bridge, then the driveway heads uphill to wonderfully landscaped stone stairs. At the top is the house, which really isn't a huge house, but it is very beautifully positioned in its surroundings. It has a pool that abuts the edge of a little cliff, and a glass-enclosed hot tub house that sits a little further up. But the best part about the property, in my opinion, were the large expanses of exposed rock that sit above the main house. Up there the view is breathtaking. One can see mountains all around: the Aspen vista of Santa Fe as well as the Sandias that overlook Albequerque.

We spent Saturday morning hanging around her casita, watching Zoey have a blast playing with the rocks and climbing the stairs. We had hoped to go to the farmer's market so Theresa could get some green chilis, but never got around to leaving until about 11 am. So we did lunch at a local restaurant instead, Harry's Roadhouse, which was right down the street. It was quite delicious; I had a burrito filled with grilled chicken and black beans, and topped with cheese and green chili sauce--very Santa Fe. Zoey behaved well in the restaurant, and made a mess of her face with the spaghetti marinara we got her.

In the restaurant, I saw a patron casually exiting the restaurant wearing a shirt that had a picture of the President with the words "International Terrorist" underneath. I had the thought that he would have gotten himself beaten up in Texas wearing that shirt, maybe even in Pueblo. It was another marked difference of the obviously very liberal Santa Fe. The table behind us were having a lively conversation about astrology and essential oils. Santa Fe: where the rich and flaky make their home.

The money was another marked difference from Pueblo. I've spent the past month in an obviously economically depressed, culturally deficient area, surrounded by beat up cars from the early 90s and Walmart fashions. Santa Fe is full of expensive SUVs and Volvos and Lands' End and Columbia outerwear. I can't say I'm comfortable in either surrounding; probably falling somewhere in the middle (minivan and Target?).

After lunch Theresa drove my car to the top of Aspen mountain, so we could see the trees in their golden glory. It was freaking beautiful. We stopped at a few places and took pictures, and let Zoey wander around and hike. She seems to really enjoy the outdoors. She'll play with the plants, pulling off leaves and inspecting them closely, and scrambling around the rocks. In fact, she has to be watched pretty carefully or she'll do something potentially dangerous. She also likes to run downhill, but who doesn't?

We couldn't really come up with a set plan for after the mountain, and Zoey had been extremely active all morning, so we just went back to Theresa's for the rest of the day. I wanted to take pictures of the sunset from the property. Besides, we were all pretty tired. Leisure called. So we spent the rest of the day and evening just hanging out, two old friends and an active and dirty toddler. She got really dirty, too, Theresa had to move all of her planters because Zoey kept reaching into the dirt and throwing it everywhere. As Theresa said, it was funny, at first....

It's odd to realize that now I have to drive for hours to hang out with Theresa. We used to see each other all the time, often just walking down the street. Oddly, we didn't really reminisce about the old days, though I did flip through her ninth grade St. Agnes yearbook and comment on the girls I used to hang out with. I also decided that Theresa took a much better picture freshman year than I did. It's funny to think that we had St. Agnes in common, yet we really didn't know each other at all that year.

On the ride back, I was once again stunned by the scenery. I'm starting to develop an appreciation for plains, especially when mountains dot the faraway landscape. The sky is expansive, and I'm fascinated by the clouds and the veils of rain one can see in the distance. As I drove into Colorado, I wanted to know the name of the mountains I had come to recognize: the granite-topped peak in Trinidad that looks like a medieval fort (Fishers Peak), the twin peaks near Walsenburg that were just starting to get covered in snow (the Spanish Peaks), and finally the slow curve of a mountain that rises out of the highway the closer you get to Pueblo (Greenhorn Mountain). It led me to some research on the history and the geology of the area, which I'm sure will entertain me for years to come as I settle into this region.

I've posted some of the Santa Fe pictures here: http://photos.yahoo.com/sadlikecrazy. Again, just click on the Santa Fe album.