Beauty Is Not A Place, It's A Perspective

Our arrival in Amarillo, TX took about six hours from the time we left Arkansas.  We opted out on a camp spot given that the temperature even as the night fell was over 100° and I was not about to risk the heat again. Instead, we holed up in a hotel giving us a break from the airstream for the night and allowing us to adventure into the city for dinner and a movie.  The Lion King just released and I knew Karilyn was really wanting to see it so I surprised her with it.  The movie was a mixed bag for me but I'm really glad that Karilyn enjoyed it.

The next morning, we set out for the KOA in Santa Fe, NM really looking forward to some new scenery.  Texas and Oklahoma proved to be somewhat on the dull end of things but we agreed that it's likely that in order to experience either, one would need to know where to go and get off the highway.  With that thought in mind, we decided to risk leaving the safe comfort of being on the highway and rode the backroad of New Mexico towards our destination.  We are really glad we did.  It was almost a surreal experience watching the landscape change and the surrounding vegetation morph into different types.  The temperature was a disconcerting 105° most of the ride which led to worries about tire and transmission temperatures given that we were very far away from civilization.  However, as we got further, the temperatures began to drop, and the hills rose to meet us.  I was fascinated by the sheer cliffs and red rocks in their very otherworldly appearance.  I just simply could not believe that people lived there but in a way I envied them.  There was not a single bar of phone signal and very little evidence of "normal" living conditions.  Most of the inhabitants looked to be ranchers with livestock roaming as far as the eye could see.  At one point, we began to drive up into a table top on a road that looked very familiar to the scene from the animated movie Cars.  In fact, there was a table waterfall(dry at time) that really looked like it could have been what inspired the producer.

The last sixty miles were much like what we had experienced living in Colorado in the high desert.  It was the town of Santa Fe that really amazed me.  The adobe style buildings were incredible and the town seemed to glow at sunset.  The smell of the amazing foods from any one of the many restaurants pushed us into a little restaurant called El Cajillon where we experienced excellent Mexican dishes including a poblano pepper soup that about rocked me with it's surprise intensity of spice.

Back at the KOA, we found that the people there were welcoming and enjoyable to talk to.  Everyone kept mentioning how "cute" our trailer was and asking if we had named it yet.  Not yet but soon.  As I sit here and write, I can't help but contemplate the word, beauty.  They say, "it's in the eye of the beholder" but, I reckon it's really deeper than that.  The eye only perceives as much as the heart and mind tells it to.  For many, the landscape in New Mexico is simply desert, barren and lacking.  For me, it's beauty, not just the land but it's people too.