i opened up the webcam to see if i could see myself walking down to the post office - but the webcam seemed to be showing that it was raining hard, and closer inspection showed that it was stuck at 6:00 am. apparently it was raining hard at 6:00 am. i myself was sound asleep, but when i woke up, i could see evidence that, indeed, things were pretty wet.

we are working out details of getting around and getting what we need with as little traveling as possible. if our town is 78 and rainy, and the entire southwest is 100 and dry as a bone, why should we move? we work carefully with the post office of the village to make sure they know who we are. we got a post office box and it looks like we'll be able to use it. let the post office, the fed ex, etc. drive around the desert and up the steep canyons. i've begun to think about ways to stay around here forever, and just refuse to budge (i guess vacation does that to you).

it's a little tourist village, less than a thousand permanent residents, rain and clouds often if not all the time. one idea would be to open a scottish apparel - kilts, bagpipes, etc. - store - though i wouldn't get much business, i could sit around this fine cloudy downtown doing what i want - listening to scottish music. i could also serve fine coffee, although i think one can get that elsewhere in certain parts of town. and, of course, i could stage a scottish festival once a year.

a more realistic possibility would be a print and copy shop, like a mailboxes. as it is one has to run down the canyon twenty minutes to the desert, where it's always at least twenty degrees hotter, just to get a copy. and in fact, we did that the other day. so i could save on my own gas, for starters, just by having a place with a copy machine nearby. this is one that could work, though it would require substantial investment.

i take every opportunity to drive through the mountain ridges, forty miles north, through the mescalero reservation, and go to ruidoso. now that's a beautiful drive. high green pastures, pretty well-taken care of woods, little gravel roads up into the mountain ridges - I don't think i've ever seen countryside so beautiful. i had an earlier plan to work in ruidoso - perhaps as a fiddler. but one thing i've learned is that 40 miles can take an hour, and at the same time be a little dicey. yesterday the tribal police came up behind me with their red sirens flashing, and the problem was, the ninja turtles were on the van dvd and had sirens of its own - but there was no traffic, and i think they could see that, so they just went around. something was happening way out there on the res - and i was glad it wasn't me. my own car handled the windy twisted roads very well - didn't see any elk, or deer, or mountain lion either. seems that depends on when you're driving.

it had rained up there too. it rained here at night and is most likely going to rain again. i think, in the entire southwest, we're one of the few people who get the rain the minute it falls. before they get to put roundup or whatever, in it. i think that's what i like best about it.