Lubbock, Las Cruces, Rancho Merlita and More

Some of you may remember that I have an uncle in Lubbock TX who we visit 1 - 2 times per year. Our first time this year was in mid-February. I've made the trip by myself in one long day, but Trout's not usually up for that, so I made reservations for us at a B&B in Las Cruces which is about 4 hours east of Tucson on I10. It was a good thing because we learned that his help was needed the same day we left instead of the day before, so we had plenty of time for that and for us to get to Las Cruces.

Doing what, you ask? Kelly needed him to help with a furniture installation at Rancho Merlita. This is the hacienda Merle Norman built in Tucson in the 1950's. It is this year's site of the Designer Showhouse and Kelly made some furniture for the Tack Room. Each year's Designer Showhouse is an opportunity for local designers to do a room in some special house, and for the Tucson Museum of Art to get the benefit of the entrance fees we looky-loos pay to see the house and what the designers did.

So the morning we left for Lubbock via Las Cruces, Trout helped Kelly load up at the shop and unload at Rancho Merlita. Everything Kelly did was made of mesquite or hand done mesquite veneer.

Here's Trout carrying in one of the round tables. There are two of them.

They fit into the counter Kelly built along the wall. They are on casters, so you can easily push them into the niches or pull them out to use them as dining or game tables.

Here Kelly and Trout carry in the sofa table. You can see in the background that there was lots of landscaping activity the day we were there.

This table was particularly impressive to me. I love the highly structural and contemporary accordian base coupled with the thick, rough slab of mesquite used for the top. This is Kelly and the room's designer talking about the piece.

For those of us cubicle types, the amount of time it takes just to load and unload stuff is always a surprise. I dropped Trout off at Kelly's shop at about 10:30 with a deadline of 2:00 for us to leave. I was supposed to meet them at Rancho Merlita at noon. They got there late, but in plenty of time for Trout to help and for us to leave "early" at 1:40 p.m.

Animal Digression:

Now I need to backtrack a little. We didn't take the animals with us to Texas. We decided it was worth it to send the alien Desert Baskerville Hound to bootcamp while we were gone. The location is the same as where we board Guido. So we took both of them to the Camino Verde Pet Resort. Cisco learned and Guido relaxed and had a much-needed bath.

Here's Cisco.

We just got one of those big round beds for him at Costco. It's for use in the office. One dog bed website said that this pose indicates that he is a "lounger" and needs a large moderately soft bed.

Here's Guido on his pillow at home. He likes Cisco, but I don't think he loves him like he did Killer. He does love his bedding though. He usurped that afghan my cousin made and I found him in Cisco's new bed this morning. So I created a special place for him in the office today constructed of baskets and the afghan. When I can snag a picture of the both of them on their beds in here, I'll post it.

Las Cruces:

We had never actually stayed in Las Cruces before, so we made the most of it. On the way to Lubbock we went to a Saturday market downtown and visited the historic village of La Mesilla, about 10 minutes away from where we stayed.

I bet Kaya didn't know she had a shop in town.

We spent so much time looking around at the market and La Mesilla and waited so long to eat our Valentine's Day lunch at La Posta, that we got a very late start from Las Cruces to Lubbock. We called my aunt and uncle from Ruidoso and decided to spend the night in Roswell because we would arrive in Lubbock too late for them. We always overlook the time change. Luckily we found a place at the Roswell La Quinta even though it was Valentine's Day and I had rewards points enough to cut the price by 50%.

So we pulled into Lubbock about noon on Sunday. We had a nice visit and stayed an extra couple of days to make up for not getting there on Saturday night. Uncle BD has dialysis on TThSat and PT on MW so our quality time with him was somewhat limited but we were there when he was available.

Aunt LaMoyne was using a crutch due to some severe arthritic back pain, but we managed to get her out to Penney's to look at new drapery treatments for the house in Lubbock. We finally took some pictures before we left on Thursday morning

Their dog, Happy, took a real liking to Trout. You can't click on this picture because I somehow deleted it and had to replace it here.

This is Aunt LaMoyne and her son, Scott. He is really a big help for both of them, even though he divides his time between Lubbock and Tyler.

This is Uncle BD and me.

Finally, here's a picture of Uncle BD, Aunt LaMoyne and me

When I see Uncle BD, I'm always struck by how much he favors my mother, his sister, even though they had different mothers. It must be those Garland blue eyes. When I was younger I wished I'd gotten them instead of the Nall (paternal grandmother) green ones, but as I got older I came to realize that green was quite okay.

OMG! It's 2009 already?!

I can't believe it's been 4 months since I last posted. But then, we have been busy with nothing much happening that was appropriate to this blog. Suffice it to say that the house did get finished and we did move in. The complete story on this will be found at our house blog when I finally get around to updating it.

It seemed like we barely moved in and we were having company. I have no pictures of any of them! Thank goodness Ramona and Jason had a new camera and I can get some pictures from her.

First it was Wally and Marsha from Seattle. They arrived on 12/11 and left on 12/15. They kind of used our place as a home base for their explorations of the area and visits with other friends. I think maybe they got more than they bargained for there since we are 30 minutes from the the city limits of Tucson and at least 15 more from where they mostly hung out.

The day after they left, our friend John brought his dad down to see the house. John lives in Susanville, CA and his dad lives near Phoenix. They stayed a couple of hours, had lunch with us and took off back north.

Later that same day, our daughters, Ruth and Ramona arrived with Ramona's husband, Jason, and their daughter Aidan. Ruth was down from Salt Lake to visit Ramona before she and her family head to Sicily. Jason is in the Navy (that's how they met) and is assigned to Sigonella. Ruth just stayed until the Friday before Christmas, but Ramona and family stayed until the day after Christmas.

Unfortunately, Trout and I got terrible colds during their visit. In my usual slow metabolic way, I started showing the symptoms about 3 days after he did. By Christmas day I was down and out but he was starting to get better. I started the pork roast that morning and went back to bed. He got up and spent time with the kids and actually cooked the Christmas dinner. I knew he could!

In spite of all that, we did get to do some fun things between feeling awful. I took Ramona, Jason and Aidan down to Tombstone. We spent just about all day and did it up right with a stagecoach ride, a visit to Boothill and watching the reenactment of the Gunfight at the OK Corral. I must say that the gunfight was better than the last one I saw, but it was a revisionist version. The Earps aren't exactly the good guys in this performance.

On Christmas Eve we went on a mule-drawn wagon ride to see the Christmas lights in a development here called Winterhaven. Most of the people in the area do some serious decorating. Some nights cars are allowed, but mostly it's only pedestrians and the mule or horse-drawn vehicles. We had a good night. It was cold but dry and the lights were great. I hope Ramona got some pictures of that, too.

One thing our guests had to put up with was no curtains on the windows (except in the office where Ruth slept). That meant being able to see lots of stars and the moon at night, but it also meant being awakened by the sun early in the morning. Hopefully by the time our next visitors arrive, I'll get some curtains up.

For now, here's what the living room looked like with the tree up.

We are moved, but not totally settled in yet. This is my challenge.

This is only part of Trout's.

This is one for both of us. As threatened, we did get a dog after the New Year. In fact, the Humane Society took in this dog on January 2nd. We saw him on 1/8, adopted him on 1/9 and picked him up on 1/10 after he was neutered. His name is Cisco. In the past, I picked the dogs and Trout did this naming. This time, Trout really picked the dog and I did the naming. You gotta love the hair.

We all will be glad when he can get this collar off. The Humane Society said it had to stay on for 14 days, but when I take him to our vet this week, I hope that can be changed. He's about 7 months old and weighed about 33 pounds when we picked him up. He may be part Wirehaired Pointing Griffon. If so, the temperament description is great. So far he's been very good. He and Guido have had some contact and things are going fine there.

So this edition of Travels with Trout is about travelers coming to us. Check out the other blog for more on the house.