I was going to hand out some cards I had made up at vistaprint a few years ago at SXSWi but Andrea took it upon herself to design some new ones for me! I totally love them!

I've been advised that blog entries about food and how often I clip my nails aren't funny or entertaining. I am nothing if not accommodating; no longer will I bore you, my faithful reader! No, from now on only insightful, wry, or possibly somewhat panicky blogs!

Thank you and good night.



-- removed backdate --

Of course, one of the first things I do when I get back is dine at Kim Phung. Surprising? No. Delicious, hell YES! In the immortal words of Penny Arcade's Tycho, "If this is wrong, I don't want to be right!"

The pic is from a garden in Taos.

Fortune: "You will soon be honored by someone you respect."

I'm back..I took the return trip in two parts, spending the night at a hotel in Roswell, NM.

I took ( pictures ) on my trip.

My trip in a nutshell: After resting and chores and packing on Friday, I got on the road to New Mexico. I should mention here that those activities I listed took up the entire day. So I didn't actually leave until 1am Saturday morning. I blindly followed the route that Yahoo! Maps spewed out for me. It took me straight north from Austin on I-35 to Ft.Worth. From there I went up IH-287 through Wichita Falls and Amarillo into New Mexico. Then I took various roads up to Taos. The pain in the ass thing is, once I actually got a road atlas (on the way) and reviewed the route, It was hardly the most efficient. I think I drove over 800 miles, started at 1am and got there at 6pm CST. Since I actually woke up at around 5PM the day before, that makes a nice 24 hours with 17 of them sitting in a car. I was a bit hallucinatory once I arrived.

I had a very enjoyable time in Taos, my friend and I visited several art galleries and eateries during my stay. Art is cool. My level of expertise with art definitely falls more to the "I don't know art but I know what I like" side, but I did enjoy several of the galleries. The best in my opinion was a small collection of black and white figure study photos in the back room of a small restaurant. Not only did they have good composition, balance, and all that shit, but they all had amazingly well formed female bodies! Wooo!

We also went up Taos mountain and had a nice afternoon descending to and lunching in the Ski Valley. The waitress at the "Stray Dog" was very cute. See the link above for some pictures, although I didn't get one of the waitiress. Sorry!

The last day I was there I basically geeked out. It's so nice that the chosen vacation spot just happens to have high speed internet. Ahhh... I also planned a new route back to Austin. This time I would head straight south from Taos on IH 285 through Santa Fe and Clines Corners. There I stopped for dinner, hamburger with green chiles and a peach smoothie. I still had some time so I headed south to Roswell. If you didn't know, Roswell is a principly-Mormon town. I arrived at 10pm. After finding a hotel room, I was bored and decided to find a bar. I don't really know why, I never go to bars when I'm in Austin. But I eventually did find one, called "Bud's." It was sort of dead, at least in relation to how empty it looked inside. I hung out and bought lots of drinks, whatever. Chatted with several drunk people. It was OK.

The next morning I drove the rest of the way back to Austin. I have to say right now, If you are going to go to New Mexico, go out 290 W to Fredericksburg, have some good German food, then take I-10 W all the way to New Mexico. It's way more pretty then north Texas, the drive is faster (two lanes most of the way), and you get to drive through Roswell and make lots of stupid Alien Abduction references. Oh.. there is a couple of cons too though.. one town in Texas reset the speed limit to 55 for a 20-mile "work zone" that had absolutely nobody working in it, and also there's a 13-mile stretch south of Artesia NM where they stripped the roadway and "scored" it, preventing driving at any speed over 50 MPH.

BTW, this drive took me very close to both Los Alamos, Roswell and Area 51. New Mexico has lots of interesting cultural references for a state that is mostly desert-like.

PS - my friend is an artist and has a ( web site ) showcasing her work.