Day 11 - Los Alamos NM to Albuquerque NM

Left the back way out of Los Alamos to go over the mountain to the Jemez recreation area. On the way we drove through an area near Los Alamos that had experienced a major forest fire within the last year or so. It was already starting to come back. More beautiful scenery in the Jemez area (see first picture) including a high country valley that was very nice. From there went to the Petroglyph National Monument and saw quite a few examples of petroglyphs that were made somewhere between 1000 B.C. and 1600 A.D. They are on a little hill overlooking Albuquerque - that's the scenic overlook picture. At the motel this morning I called the Olympus camera support staff to try to determine what to do with my non-functioning camera. After describing the symptoms, he told me to "send it in to the factory for repairs". I told him that I was on my way to an Elderhostel on digital photography and I had to have a camera. He said "send it in to the factory for repairs". So we stopped at a Best Buy and bought a new camera for me to use at the course - it wasn't an Olympus. I'll get the old one repaired and sell it on E-Bay. One observation on New Mexico: houses come in four colors - beige, cream, tan and ecru. Also public buildings, businesses, highway overpasses, bridges, etc. An interesting combination but I like it. The last picture shown is actually left over from yesterday - I didn't want you to miss the snow-covered peaks. FROM GHOST: this is short for Ghostwriter and I will tell it like it really happened. One day on the way to Taos we were taking the scenic road and the driver missed the turn and pretty soon we were on a dirt road.The driver decided to turn around.......good thing. The driver thought we should turn around after we forded 2 streams. The driver hates to give up the wheel, especially in the mountains. His knuckles were white the day I came down the mountain. And he tried to sleep when I drive because then one can not see what is going on. The road signs are hard to get used to. Maybe the state decided to warn one of an approaching turn and maybe not. We have passed many a corner and had to circle back. So far there have been no big arguments. GHOST