Scottsdale 2010 road trip, part 1

Gosh, this month has been sooooooo busy for me. February is a short month anyway, but it just seems to have flown by.

On the day before Valentine's Day, I had lunch with a fellow blogger, HorseCentric, who came to New Mexico to see some family and snow. We've had so much snow lately that her daughters were delighted to be able to make snowmen.

I met up with her and her family at Monroe's Mexican Restaurant in Albuquerque for lunch. We had a great time chatting about horses and stuff and found that we have much in common. She is a wonderful person and her family is super friendly. Here's a photo of her and her daughter.
It was great to meet all of her family. I was really surprised to find out that her father lived out my way, so on their way home we stopped at my house so she could meet my little horse herd.

We had to wade through about eight inches of snow and mud to the arena gate. Annie and Yalla! came running down from the other end of the arena to see us. Yalla! stayed and nosed everyone. HorseCentric got a great photo of Yalla! giving kisses to her husband which I am linking to here. Annie gladly accepted a few pats and then strangely, took off running back to Scout and Nadia who stood watching from the far end. When she ran up to them it seemed like she gave them the okay to come over and visit because they started out walking, then trotting, then finally running over to us where they nosed us for a few minutes while Annie stayed back at the far end. Then she again came running over and Scout and Nadia moved away. There is no doubt who is in control of this herd!


This past weekend, I took off from work on Friday and drove out to Phoenix with my mother and daughter to see the Scottsdale Arabian Horse show. We had planned on going to Arizona on the same weekend I met HorseCentric but the snows kept my mom from leaving her house until Thursday, last week. We had good weather driving out and enjoyed all the beautiful scenery along the way. Here's my daughter driving. The landscape was breathtaking with the blue sky, red rocks, green brush, and white snow. This is by Grants. The black rock in front is lava rock. This is the beginning of the El Malpais, the Badlands. Basalt rocks are everywhere.

As we neared Gallup and the New Mexico /Arizona border, the signs for trading posts became more frequent. These are some government subsidized housing. Aren't they cute with all the different color roofs? We saw lots of trains along the way too.
Here's a giant wooden Indian.



to be continued...