New Mexico

I was going to call this post Hell but decided that wouldn't be entirely fair because while in many was it was that bad, there was some good, as well. I did not want to move to New Mexico. California, specifically Siskiyou County, was what I knew, it is where is grew up, it is where I had lived my entire life (except for that five month period I've mentioned in Provo which I don't really count). I had no desire to leave.

Some people, however, have a the-grass-is-always-greener complex. After making phone calls, it was discovered that there were indeed jobs to be had in New Mexico (there are anywhere, really, if you don't mind what kind of work you do and are willing--you can create your own job as well). After renting a mobile home (that was a stretch) sight unseen, we made arrangements, announced we were leaving Sunday at church, and left on Tuesday. All I can do at this point is shake my head in disbelief.

This newer mobile home was a single-wide trailer almost as old as me (manufactured in 1971) and not in good shape. It hadn't been properly cleaned, it was not in the middle of the country as promised (remember, we were coming from an old dairy farm where our nearest neighbors were a field of cows), there were no trees to speak of (they call juniper bushes 'trees' so use your imagination), and the river we were near (San Juan) was brown.

This one is just so you can get a better idea of what exactly we were getting into. On the left is Farmington. On the right is Bloomfield. You really cannot tell where one ends and the other begins. It was just a lot of people surrounded by the desert.

Our address was CR 5500 Box something. Basically, to the west of County Road 5500 was Farmington, to the east was Bloomfield.

This is the country. I guess New Mexico is kind of like New England--words I think I know and understand have an entirely different meaning.

Things have obviously changed since we were there. You can see two rows of trailers. We lived in the top row on the end nearest 5500 but our trailer was perpendicular to the driveway road rather than 5500 as the one in this image. This was obviously taken in the winter sometime but can you see any green? Yeah, me neither.

We were there for about a year and a half. Actually, a year, two months and two weeks. We met some wonderful people during our stay there and Dan found his second best job in terms of longevity while there. It was too close to people, though, and there was no place for a garden right where we were. We did have a garden at someone else's house but once our bicycles were stolen, it was hard to get over to work in it.

I was ready to turn around and go back to California when we pulled into the driveway and that didn't really change the whole time we lived in Bloomfield. So, we ended up moving. We looked at different places near Bloomfield but it isn't likely any of them would have worked out. Eventually we ended up moving out to Escrito.

Those squiggly lines? They are washes. Not rivers or streams; washes. Washes are interesting things. Fascinating things. When they are dry, they are fun to walk along and explore. When they have water running in them, they are incredible to watch. We met more interesting people out here and I have to say that in general, the Navajo people are some of the nicest I've ever met.

More up close and personal. The mobile home in the middle at the bottom is approximately where ours was. The big quadrilateral north of it was the big garden. Our first summer there we had a smaller garden just off the south west corner of the house but we were going to be part of this big cooperative venture so we needed something larger. Well, we got it.

While living here Amena was born and then two days less than two years later, Cedric. I can't say I'm sorry we lived in New Mexico but in general most of the time we were there I would not care to live over. We left New Mexico four years after we arrived.

Next up--Idaho.