Aug. 18 & 19

Sunday - picked up Ben & Kelsey.  A sad day, Kelsey has to go home.  Took her to ABQ to the airport, her flight was at noon.  We drove back to Santa Fe on the "Turquoise Trail" Hwy 14, a scenic drive.   Went to the motorhome and had lunch.  Ben taught us how to play cribbage, it will be a good game for the two of us.  Gary took Ben home & stopped for supplies for setting up the computer desk.  We went to 5:30 Mass at Santa Maria de la Paz.  It was the youth led Mass and another great homily by the priest there.  Came home, Face Timed with the grandsons and saw another beautiful sunset.

Monday - picked Ben up early & headed to the Kasha-Katuew Tent Rocks National Monument for a hike.  We did the Canyon Trail, a 1.5 mile one way hike through narrow rock openings on the way to the top.  Amazing rock formations, many with "tent-like" tops.   It was warm and a climb with increasing altitude - the boys were fine but I struggled a little with my breathing and racing heart.  But, I made it!   Again, amazing beauty.   As we started down we ran into several groups of junior high kids headed up and before we were halfway down some of them were jumping & running back down.  There were a lot of places with slippery footing on the rocks, but they just jumped and slid as they RAN down.  Oh to be young and fearless.  We took a lot of pictures, every turn was fascinating.  We highly recommend it.
There were storm clouds rolling in, so we finished the hike and headed to town.   Ate lunch at Los Amigos with Ben and then took him home to prepare for the evening opera.  
That night we headed to the Opera House again.  We weren't sure we would get to tailgate, there were rain clouds filling the sky.  When we arrived, we could see it had rained there already, but was ending with a few sprinkles.  We tailgated again in the car and watched the many groups of experienced tailgaters.  The opera this evening was La Dona del Lago with Joyce DiDonato leading.  She and the other principals did an outstanding job, we knew we had experienced a true professional opera and enjoyed every minute. Ben had many appearances in the chorus, wearing kilts with armour and blood.  We went back stage to see him and congratulate them all.  We saw Miss DiDonato and he said we had missed seeing Robert Redford - darn!