Tuesday & Wednesday in our House

          Bruce picked me up at the El Paso airport at 12:30 pm yesterday October 9 and we arrived at our house in Silver City at about 4 pm. The drive from El Paso is fairly boring and the terrain is dry and flat. We could see dust devils in the distance several times.

          It’s not until you reach Santa Clara, about 9 miles east from SC that the hills begin and it starts getting green. By this time we’ve climbed to about 6,000 feet altitude. Silver City itself is very green and very pretty. The sky was clear blue and the temperature in the mid 70’s – pretty nice, especially since it was rainy and cold when I left Philadelphia.

          I unpacked my stuff, and wandered around the yard and house, admiring what Bruce has done since April. Books are on the bookshelves, pictures on the wall, and one shelf of the wall to wall bookcase in the living room sports photographs of the kids and grandkids while another has cards and pictures that they’ve sent to Bruce since he has been living here.  Kuniko called from Tokyo to wish me good travels. It was good to hear her voice.

          After dinner it started cooling off and I wrapped myself in an afghan while we watched The New Girl on TV and yesterday’s Jon Stewart streaming from Bruce’s laptop.

          I woke up at about 5 am (mountain time), 7 am (eastern) and got up, checked email and read. Bruce went to a ‘paleontology of ancient people’ class at WILL (Western Institute of Lifelong Learning), so I decided to check out the yoga studio I had visited in April. The teacher I had liked had moved to different facility and I found her schedule and location on the bulletin board at the food co-op where I also bought some apples, eggs and oatmeal. (It felt a bit like Mt Airy!)

          I stopped by the yarn shop to see if they still have an open knitting workshop on Sunday afternoons – they do – and I talked to a women who volunteers a few mornings a week at a ‘soup’ kitchen. I’m thinking I might try that for a while until I have a better idea of what I want to do here.

          After dropping the food off at the house, I met Bruce at noon at the University for a WILL Lunch and Learn presentation on “How Shakespeare Changed Everything” which was surprisingly funny and interesting.

          Since then, we’ve been just hanging out at the house: did some laundry, finished reading The Girl Who Played With Fire, making dinner.

          It’s been a pretty good start.

Greetings from Silver City, New Mexico!

It's been a really long time since I've posted anything. In June, 2011, Bruce and I returned to Philadelphia after our 3 months at the Gila Cliff Dwellings. After signing up for a 2nd tour of duty for January - March 2012, we discovered on our trip home that Dory was pregnant with twins. To make a long story short, we enjoyed the remainder of 2011 in Mt Airy Philadelphia; welcoming Max and Audry Urwin to our extended family in November 2011. Bruce traveled west to The Cliff Dwellings in December, I remained home to enjoy the babies and to help out. Twins are a whole different experience in child raising. Hats off to Dory and Rob who are doing a fantastic job of raising their 3 under 3! (Although Simone has now had her 3rd birthday so that's not quite accurate.) Bruce had a great time in New Mexico; I "worked" for 2 weeks at the monument and we went house hunting in Silver City. ( Crazy, I know, but that's what we did.)

In April 2012 we had settlement on a lovely house in the University area of Silver City. I spent 3 weeks in April helping Bruce buy furnishings and then we went back home to Philly to celebrate our son Luke's graduation from Penn graduate school. Congrats to Dr Luke! Bruce drove back to Silver for the summer returning to welcome Luke and Bonnie's brand new daughter Caroline in September.

Now it's October and I'm heading to New Mexico ....

Watching storm maps in Baileyton, Tennessee

We've been traveling towards Philadelphia for the last 7 days, driving about 300 miles a day. Except for our second day out, when we spent several hours walking and viewing rock art at the Three Rivers Petroglyph National Recreation Site near Tularosa, NM. Then we drove about an hour to the Valley of Fire State Park where we walked on the nature trail and camped overnight. Here are some pictures.

And from Valley of fire:

If all goes well - no giant hailstones - or tornadoes - we should be home in Philadelphia on Saturday May 28!

Three wonderful months voluneering at Gila Cliff Dwellings

Bruce and I have had an absolutely wonderful time on our first time volunteering for National Park Services. Here are random pictures of us working.

On April 28th, a human caused fire started near Miller Spring in a very rugged area of the Gila Wilderness. about 7 miles from the Monument. By Sunday May 8, the Miller fire had grown to over 30,000 acres and was within a mile of the Monument. The Gila valley was smoke filled. Road 15 going to the Monument had been closed to all traffic other than residents and residents were being advised to evacuate. By 6 pm, all but 3 NPS employees/volunteers had evacuated. We camped at a NSF campground about 25 miles away for 2 nights and then, when unable to reach the Park, went north to Acoma Pueblo. We returned to the Cliff Dwellings on Friday May 13. Here are 2 pictures from a trail head about 200 yards from the residential area.











All structures including the Visitor Center, Natural Science Exhibit at the Cliff Dwelling trailhead, and the residences were protected successfully from the fire. The Caves are fine - the trail down sustained some damage. We stayed 6 days, helping with cleanup of the buildings, watching the firefighters, helicopters, cleanup crews do an amazing job. Bruce got to give a final tour to a group of 25 Hot Shots (NFS fire crews) who had finished a 14 day tour. The road was opened today to Gila Hot Springs (about 4 miles) from the Monument. We expect the road to open to the Visitor Center by Monday. And as soon as the guard rails on the West Fork Trail bridge can be repaired/replaced the Cliff Dwellings visits can resume - probably by Memorial Day weekend.

Yesterday was our original last scheduled day, and since there isn't much to do except hang around waiting, we decided to head home.

As of today, over 78,111 acres have burned. Containment is 40%. 416 personnel are engaged, including 13 crews, 10 engines, 6 water tenders. 7 helicopters are giving support.
For more information: http://nmfireinfo.wordpress.com/2011/05/20/gila-national-forest-miller-fire-update-may-19th-900-am/


Here are 3 pictures from Acoma Pueblo - we really enjoyed our tour there.

A pueblo street high on the mesa top

A taill down from the mesa

Buildings along the road back to the Visitor Center

A few pictures from a walk on South Mesa last week

Spring time in Silver City

We spent Thursday and Friday nights in Silver City at the RV park on Bennett Street right near Old City - where the Food Co-op, galleries, thrift stores and many restaurants are. It was a relaxing couple of days. The trees are turning green, some are in bloom, the temperature yesterday afternoon read 82 at the Insurance Company electronic "time and temp" display. We had an excellent Mexican meal last night. And most importantly, I was able to get my new laptop completely set-up and synced with my new IPOD Touch.

Two weeks ago I dropped my laptop and knocked out the hard drive. Last week I got the least expensive brand name laptop at Walmart and spent one VERY long afternoon trying to get it set up - drivers and updates installed, etc. Then came recovering passwords, trying to catch up with finances, etc. Some of it I just couldn't do at Gila CD Monument. Really needed a phone connection and fast internet. So that's what I did Thursday afternoon. Then I had to figure out how to use Windows Live Photo Gallery because Windows 7 doesn't interface very well with the old Photo Gallery. I hope to add a couple of pictures to this post.

We've been really busy at the Cliff Dwellings the last 10 days or so - spring break. We've had 150 - 220 visitors a day. It's fun,  but it feels like we are talking for 8 hours straight each working day.  Bruce has given at least one tour each week, plus a couple of special college groups. I still haven't got my tour approved for the official daily one. I have a meeting with Rod for Monday morning, so I guess I'll have to start. I enjoy the smaller groups, but maybe the tours will be a little smaller after this weekend.

Our work schedule is changing this week - We'll be working Monday through Thursday for a while. It gives us an extra day off this weekend since we don't start working til Monday. Tonight we have a pot luck dinner in the dorm, partly to say goodbye to another couple who will be taking off tomorrow.

I'm going to post this without pictures as soon as I'm online again. And then I'll try to send some pictures directly to the blog. Wish me luck!!

Another beautiful day in the Gila

Saturday. I'm sitting outside our trailer enjoying the sunshine and breeze. It's about 65 F. I just came back from the nearest hot spring, it's about 1/2 mile from the visitor center and from our trailer. Bruce walked to the River (the middle fork of the Gila) with me, but didn't feel like fording it, so I went on by myself. It was really quite nice; the water is about 130 degrees where it emerges, but there are little pools constructed with stones along the bank which allow various combinations of hot and cold water. Very relaxing! I lay submerged for about 30 minutes chatting with two couples who were drying off before walking back. A nice way to spend a few hours on my last day off before beginning a new work week tomorrow.

Bruce is inside making enchiladas for the pot luck tonight. And he's listening to the Villanova basketball game on his new satellite radio. We went to Silver City on Thursday to shop - mostly for food, but also for toys - and to catch up with family on the phone.

Last week great fun working. We were at the caves all 4 days. I gave lots of mini tours (where we walk through the 5 caves with visitors, answering questions and sharing what we know about the cliff dwellings. I love doing it. It is such an interesting and mysterious place! It is easy to be enthusiastic. Plus the weather is lovely and the scenery is beautiful. It is tiring though, because you're always "on" while you're there.