|
|
Happy New Year!
In last year's newsletter .....
Another year is behind us and we're gradually dipping our toes into more
travelling and socializing. We're grateful to be healthy and
enjoying retirement. Here's a report on this year's happenings.
As usual, all pictures are clickable.
The first snow of the year was welcomed on New Year's day. Now
in the 22nd year of a drought, snow is always welcome. A good
snowfall is especially welcome for skiing (Hubert) or snowshoeing
(Deb).
|
|
|
Visiting San Xavier del Bac Mission,
founded in 1692
|
|
Saskia and Andrew (now Dr. Tegarden!) still live in Tucson. We try to visit in the
spring or fall, summer is too hot. Tucson is a great
city for bicycling, as well as for birdwatching and hikes in the nearby mountains.
Our snowbird friends Rick and Yvonne Green from our LSU graduate
school days
come from Vancouver in the fall and
spring to their place in Tucson and we always have fun together.
|
| |
Lou at the laser harp
|
|
Longtime friends Lou and Marian, with whom we shared a house
in Syracuse the early 80's, came to visit in May. Lou went with us to
MeowWolf, an innovative immersive art experience created by a large group of
local artists. This consortium has opened other installations in Las Vegas
NV and Denver, with more projects planned. It's nice to see New Mexico
artists achieve this level of success.
|
|
|
June starts the fruit season. Cherries (if any) are first. This year they came in
spades. These were followed by weeks and weeks of apricots. At one point
we were not sure what to do with 30 pounds of apricots collected daily!
We could be counted on to bring some sort of apricot dessert to any and every
gathering.
And just when we thought that we'd have a bit of respite from dealing with
fruit, a bumper
crop of apples appeared. All the canning, baking and processing kept us
from being bored. Yum!
Making apricot fruit leather →
|
|
|
The yearly International Folk Art Market was scheduled just after July 4th. As
has been the case every year that we're in town, Deb worked as a
translator, this year for two wonderful artists,
Pedro Mesa from Chiapas, MX and
Crucelina Chocho from Colombia. Both represented artists' collectives and
were a pleasure to work with. The market hadn't quite returned to
pre-pandemic
scale. The usual muscial performances were limited, sadly. Hopefully
2023 will be a better year.
|
| | "Our" bench along the Vecht in Weesp
|
|
Just when we thought we'd forgotten how to pack a suitcase, August rolled
around and we headed off for a month in the Netherlands courtesy of
our friend and former
neighbor, Jenny Quillian. She had decided to make an extended trip to
Alaska and we housesat for her in Weesp for the month of August.
You may think
that there's not a month's worth of interesting sights to see in the
Netherlands, but there were plenty of places we'd never visited. Plus all
the friends and family we hadn't seen in 4 years and, well, four+
weeks flew by. Especially if one of you
comes down with Covid the first week and you have to isolate. We spent
that time walking and biking in the countryside. Attached are a few photos
from our time there.
While in the Netherlands, we did some research on e-bikes. Why? Well,
Deb's knees complain about biking in hilly Santa Fe and the Dutch town of
Utrecht has a humongous e-bike store, the largest in Europe, with an
indoor track for testing out bikes. It turned out that the US has very
good e-bikes, just not 40+ brands all in one place. Ultimately, we were
able to find a great bike here in the US and Deb is back to biking with pleasure.
|
|
|
Thanksgiving found us in Tucson, where we spent 10 days and visited Rick
and Yvonne as well as Saskia and Andrew. One high point of the trip was
visiting the University of Arizona Gem and Mineral Museum which was recently
moved to the Pima County Courthouse, a 1920's building that is listed on the
National Registry of Historic Places. Both the collection and the building
are remarkable.
We also were able to visit the University of Arizona Museum of Art. Their painting
by Willem de Kooning, Woman Ochre, was stolen and damaged by thieves who cut the
painting from its frame in 1985. The painting turned up in Silver City, NM,
where Saskia and Andrew previously lived, and involves some of their friends.
It was returned to the museum this past October after
three years of restoration work and is on display in its original spot. It is now
much more carefully guarded than previously. The mysterious story of this art
theft can be
read here
if you are interested.
|
| | Speculaas en pepernoten
|
| | Deb's Trek Verve 3
|
|
The Christmas holidays included a visit from Niels and Tyko, who were able to
come down from Denver, where they are currently living. An unexpected bonus was
a brief visit to Santa Fe by nephew Steele Pollard, wife Lauren and their adorable
children, Alexandra (8), Eliza (6) and Miles (4). It's always a treat to spend
time with family and share our knowledge and love of our adopted town. After
almost 36 years here, it really is home!
Hubert keeps busy working one day/week, mostly on a device that will
eventually go to LHCb,
as well as spending many hours at
Make, and continuing
science
outreach activities in the local schools.
Deb is still licensed as a Speech and Language Pathologist. She is a member of the state's multidisciplinary cleft palate clinic held twice yearly for assisting children and their families obtain the services they need. Perhaps there will be some short-term therapy committments this year or tutoring of children learning English as a second language. We'll see...In the meantime there's Pilates with intrepid classmates Ingrid, Laura and Char taught by equally intrepid Patricia Rodriguez, as well as online Spanish conversation and book groups.
|
|
home
|
back
|
