Our friend Liz came to see us this week, and so I've been away from the computer, seeing the sights of New Mexico. Isn't it interesting how you forget what's in your own city and state until you start showing someone else around? It helps that all the driving to Santa Fe and around Albuquerque was done with Liz in the car, and Liz makes me laugh, which is my favorite way to pass the time. So here are a few pictures from our adventures, and I'd also like to insert a brief commercial here for those of your considering a trip to New Mexico: Come on out! Dan will pick you up at the airport. I will show you the sights. Kate and I are unemployed and available to go to Santa Fe at a moment's notice. I will cook you dinner. I will even take Kate's pack n play out of the guest room and let you have the whole thing to yourself. I will do all of this out of sheer relief at not having had to get on an airplane with a baby in order to visit with you. Thanks to the airline industry's new customer service approach (Motto: "If we could charge you $25 for oxygen on the plane, we totally would.") I am getting to the point where I would pay large sums of money NOT to get on a plane.So please consider the Land of Enchantment next time you are planning a vacation. Maybe I'll give you the money I would have spent on a plane ticket. End commercial.

Here are Liz, Kate and I on the top of Sandia Peak. We rode the tram up, and I couldn't tell if Kate really like the ride or was really really scared, because she kept hanging on to the rail in front of the tram car windows like she was either just really taken with it or was trying to reassure herself that she wasn't going to fall.

With Liz checking out the trees changing colors on the backside of the peak.

In Santa Fe, we had gelato, and Kate cried if I didn't get another bite of it into her mouth quickly enough. Child after my own heart.

We sat on the square downtown and watched hippies and elderly folks in town with guided tour bus groups. Oddly no one was protesting anything that day, which may mark the first time I've been in Santa Fe without seeing someone marching in protest of the war/animal abuse/purple shirts on Thursdays or whatever sorts of things you start protesting when you run out of actual injustices. Someone did talk to me about the environment, but they didn't have any signs and were really nice, so I didn't mind. And Kate enjoyed her pita bread picnic.

Actually, the most intrusive thing that happened during our travels wasn't in Santa Fe, World Capital of Sign-Waving Concerned Citizens, but in Albuquerque, where, during an otherwise unremarkable lunch at Einstein Bros. Bagel Co., this guy came up to Kate, grabbed her toy monkey, and started making it kiss her face. Which might have been cute for about 30 seconds, but the guy just kept doing this for about five minutes. I didn't know what to do. Kate handled it pretty well, but she kept giving Liz and I these looks like "Seriously? Is this guy nuts? And is he going to give me back my monkey, or what?" I really think he was trying to be nice, and so I tried really hard not to laugh until we got out of the restaurant, but it was such a weird thing to do. So when you come for your visit to Albuquerque, we won't go to lunch there. Promise.