UMTravels

The snow overnight was less than impressive. The weather reports for the last three days were predicting 8-10″ of snow for the Taos/Red River area. Around dinner time last night it started snowing…. and by the morning 3/8″ of the driest snow I’ve ever seen had accumulated. If I’d had a leaf blower — I could have had the car stripped of snow in 15 seconds.

And speaking of cars — rented an intermediate SUV from Advantage on Cerillos Road in Santa Fe. Got a hell of a deal — $36.99 a day (I heard the woman behind the counter quote someone $40 a day for compact car) for a 4wd Hyundai Tucson. Nice ride!

Lots of interior room. Easy to use heating controls. Good pick-up (V6). All-time 4wd, but with a lock mode for really slick slow areas. Both a cassette (rare these days in a 2008 model) and CD player — probably plays MP3s as well. think mine was a darker grey than the one above. Split 2/3, 1/3 back seat. Downside? no audio in jack. Odd since it had both cassette and CD. Maybe next year. Average 20 city/highway. As bad as my mommy van which has 50% more interior room. Starts at 18K for the 2wd, 21K for the 4wd.

So, enough about cars, more about me. Still wrestling with why my laptop won’t read my memory card from the camera — got another 2gig card and the same thing. Maybe the laptop is so old that the bios doesn’t support 2gig memory cards. Seems unlikely.

Stopped at Trader Joes (booze run) and Radio Shack (memory card — 2GB for $19.95 — 60% off!) on the way to drop off the above rental car.

Lazy afternoon of helping dad assemble Christmas presents for under the tree, reading the three daily papers my parents receive (Albuquerque, Santa Fe, and the New York Times).

Dinner for me (parents off to dinner with friends) with the Ortiz Gang. My brother-in-law who is married to my sister-in-law (my dead brother’s widow), the nieces (Karen and Emily), the foreign exchange student (goes by Ant), and sis-in-law’s aunt Nancy. Wow, that’s a mouth full.

I think we are actually having Christmas Eve tomorrow night rather than Monday night, so people can go to various church services, the bag-o-leetos on Canyon Road, all the various Santa Fe seasonal stuff.

Hopefully pictures soon!