Road Trip

8/19/08

Madelyn and I just got back from Silver City, where Mark is staying for another month. Ever see the movie Rat Race? All these people have to race to get to Silver City from Las Vegas, and the first person to get there wins $3 million. The premise is funny because Silver City is in the middle of nowhere and rather hard to get to. Now I'm going to have to rent that movie again...

This wall is even shaped like the state of New Mexico. Those clever Silver City people.

Anyway, the drive is supposed to take around 4 to 4 1/2 hours from Albuquerque... unless you space your exit and wind up driving to Las Cruces, get lost on East Hwy 70, and then have to backtrack to the West Hwy 70, get on the I-25, to connect to the I-10, to eventually get on Hwy 26, like I did. Another 30 miles south and I would have been in Mexico. (Stop laughing!) The truth is that I get lost on a fairly regular basis, so my past experiences have taught me to just shrug it off and keep going till I find my way.

It took me around 6 hours to get to Mark's. Well, any of you who have driven in the west should understand me. Once you leave city limits, it's a whole lot of nothing for miles on end (Oh, look! More sagebrush!), other than the occasional small towns with odd names (Truth or Consequences, Elephant Butte, Arrey and Darrey) or 14-foot giant metal roadrunners or dinosaurs on the side of the road to attract your attention. Otherwise, you just hit cruise control and zone out for a couple hundred miles. So it's easy to miss an exit to a rural highway, is what I'm saying.

We did finally arrive at Mark's adobe cottage (which has no AC, I might add--what, are we in the 1940's or something?). It is small and quaint, and the landlady works hard to keep things looking nice. So naturally, to disguise an attic door located in the bedroom, she placed a purple, 4-foot wide, slightly creepy looking butterfly kite over it. You feel like you're being watched as you sleep, with those big, buggy eyes.

Madelyn loved this butterfly, of course. Now she wants one in her room.

The real reason we came to visit is that it was Mark's 30th birthday yesterday!! (Yes, he realizes that he still looks about 23.). There wasn't much to do in Silver City, but we did find a spiffy park for Madelyn and we went to Wal-Mart about three times. Luckily, Mark gets Dish Network, so we could watch TV while we were sitting there thinking about how hot it was in his place.

Madelyn was so excited to help make this Jello cheesecake (no baking required--thus no heating up of the apartment). Plus, she thinks every time there is a birthday, the cake and presents are really all for her.

We were invited to go up to Dr. Nwachuku's house to meet his wife and admire how many cars, nice things, and how big of a house you can build on top of a mountain when you are a doctor. He has his own OB-GYN practice and is also head of surgery at the local hospital. He and his wife are Nigerian. They are super nice. Mark is loving working with him because they get to do a lot of surgery and deliveries, as well as clinic work. So it's good to see him happy and having a good time at his rotation (for a change).

Mark, Madelyn and Dr. Nwachuku and his wife outside of their house

Mark was ready to have us get the heck out of there after three days, though. Madelyn is not the type of child you want around if you have neighbors on either side of your walls. (Loud and always stomping around and leaping off things) Plus, she's still trying to get over this virus she got last week that has given her diarrhea. So she had a few messy accidents, and a bloody nose, plus she was always spilling food and drink everywhere. She nearly destroyed every article of clothing that I brought for her. Here she is splashing in a puddle in the middle of the street in her Sunday dress:

It's going to be a loooong couple of weeks until we see Mark again. We love him and miss him so much! We're lucky to have such a great guy in our family.

Well, back to reality and my piles of laundry and unpacking....

PS. Happy birthday today to my mother-in-law, Kathy! You are fabulous!!