Finally I'm Sitting down to write.
Susan: Since the last round of posts here's what we've been doing:
Susan took me out for my birthday May 25th to Indian Palace and Laffs. Great time.
We went camping at Jemez Falls in mid June. My first camping trip since I was 12. Didn't much care for Susan's claustrophobic one person tent I tried to sleep in with her, but the rest of the trip was great. We ate great meals cooked on the campfire.
July 29th, 30, 31. Flew to Detroit for the wedding of Susan's son Chris. Awesome experience. Met Chris, Susan's daughter's Annie and Heather and Susan's mom Irene, or "Boushi" as she is called. Love all the kids, who are all in their twenties. They seemed to like me too. Boushi is in her eighties and didn't warm to me until the last day. Also met the ex-hubby, her brother and his family, and a passle of nuns. The bride, Kay, looked magnificent, like a Grace Kelly Barbi doll. The reception was a hoot, with most attendees getting properly sloshed, especially the father of the bride. Great band, and Susan and I danced almost all night. I even got to dance with Susan during the parents of the bride and groom dance, as her ex-husband was out of the room at the time. Went to a cool Middle Eastern restaurant (that wasn't as good as Pars here) the night before and also saw the Motown Museum and the Henry Ford Museum. The trip back was less than spectacular due to a dead bug in Susan's salad at the Friday's in the Dallas airport and a three hour delay in the flight home.

August 9th through 12th, Susan and I went on a trip to Herron and El Vado lakes in Northern New Mexico. We stayed at a cabin at Stone House Lodge which overlooks El Vado Lake. It was gorgeous up there. We planned to fish as the lodge website said they rented fishing poles, but when we got there, we found out you had to rent a boat to get a pole. Talk about the shaft!
We went hiking along the Rio Chama trailhead, which was almost too adventurous for Susan; a steep hike down to the river via wood and stone stairs, then across the river by suspension bridge and up more steps on the other side. Really fun but after about a mile or so, we both were pooped and turned around. Ended the afternoon at the Brushy Point campground, where we soaked our feet in Herron Lake and skipped rocks for an hour. Susan tried to wade in the lake, but her foot sank into the mud up to mid-calf and she lost her flip flop.
It rained heavily both nights we were there, but it just made it more romantic. I could have just hung around the back porch of the cabin watching the birds fly by, but Thursday night we ventured into Chama for dinner.We got stuck in a torrential downpour on the way, but found a cool little BBQ place run by a red-headed mother-daughter team from Louisiana that was well worth the long drive.
We left about 10 Friday morning, and stopped at Tierra Wools in Los Ojos, because Susan wanted to learn more about their weaving classes. What a cool place in a super-funky little village! The weaving shop was awesome, and set up so you could watch people weave and dye the wool. There were also a number of friendly dogs to greet us and follow us around. I had no intention to do so, but I ended up buying a beautiful $175 rug for my wall. Susan wants to move to Los Ojos to weave, and I could buy the bookshop next to the weaving shop and write my books during the slow days. A lot of potential in that idea, really.
After a couple more detours, mainly going 10 miles down a winding, bumpy, muddy road looking for a campground a friend told us about that we never did find, and stopping off at Trader Joe's in Santa Fe, we made it home in time for the Robert Cray concert at the Rio Grande Zoo, which I will talk about in an all-music column soon.
Our latest big adventure was to the Santa Fe Indian Market yesterday. We got to Santa Fe early in the morning, and took the park-and-ride bus from Villa Linda Mall to the Plaza. An illustration of Santa Fe style was the free bottled water and pastry offered at the bus stop. Cool! We watched the Native American clothing contest on the plaza, which was very fun, especially thanks to the young children wearing many of the traditional outfits. The event was hosted by some old cowboy guy who was boring as hell, but at least the star gazer in me got a kick out of watching Wes Studi, Joe Leaphorn in the Tony Hillerman PBS movies, who was one of the judges. After frying in the sun awhile, we walked around the booths and oohed and aahed at the art, most of which was well out of our price range. We got hungry and tried to find a sushi restaurant we liked but it was too far away from the plaza, so we settled for a Thai lunch. It was good, but not great, though the decor was a neat mix of Thai and Santa Fe style. Once we got back to the plaza, there were many more folks walking about, and after going down a few more rows of booths, it all started to look the same, so we headed home. Looked to me like the Indian Market as a whole wasn't as busy as expected though, just like my summer business.

Susan has helped motivate my to start writing a mystery novel, and as of last week, I've started jotting down possible characters and plot ideas. We plan on having regular work times where I write and she works on her school stuff. I want to be far enough along by November 30th to actually have an novel writtten for National Novel Writing Month.