Time to think, plot mischief, and watch a sunset

I had lots of time to think and watch the world while driving up to and back from Denver, and I had to wonder why, if Texas is so damn great, half the cars I saw on I-25 throughout New Mexico and Colorado had Texas plates. Going somewhere, people?

I also thought about gardening. I've been doing it for quite a while now -- sometimes in containers on small apartment balconies, more recently in whole yards that let me get in way over my head -- and by the time we left California, I'd gotten pretty good at it. Now, in a very dry mountain setting, I'm struggling at best and realize that I have to learn new gardening skills. Take a (much) less water-intensive approach. Figure out not just how to keep stuff alive here but what will thrive with little water and lots of dry winds. My vegetable garden is surviving only because I water it every other day, sometimes more, but even with that much watering my "flower beds" in front have done almost nothing -- some seeds sprouted, then died off, and of the few plants I put in only a few herbs are hanging in there. So I did a Web search on xeriscaping -- low-water landscaping -- and actually found a site that makes me drool just as much as all those seed and flower catalogs I used to get every winter. It has a small resource library not to mention lots of colorful perennials that might actually do well up here. Here are a few I have my eye on:



By this time next year (patience, Anna) I might actually have something other than dust and rocks for a yard.

On the way home, somewhere between Wagon Mound and Watrous, I saw the most amazing sunset. Lots of torn, ragged clouds piled up over the Sangre de Cristo mountains, all stained with some shade of red or violet or orange, and then a hawk sailed right through the scene. The thing about sunsets here is they last forever, and change slowly but constantly, giving an hour or so of good viewing pleasure. If I hadn't been driving I'd have put my feet up, cracked open a beer, and declared that it doesn't get any better than this. Knowing that, in fact, it always does.