late again on the holiday cards, the calendars, the joyous greetings, etc. fortunately we don't put bright red and dark green all over them, as these two colors go directly out of fashion on christmas day. rather, we're kind of a muted blue, faded pink kind of family anyway so we don't even have to pressure the post office to hurry up before the spirit of the holiday has gone away. but the real problem, from my point of view, is that we are not entirely truthful, giving mostly only the good news, leaving out such things as a forty-six thousand dollar helicopter ride that will supposedly get partly paid for, and other such calamities, and so i kind of feel a little incomplete. of course i can write the rest of that stuff by hand, but actually, i'd like to just skip the whole process, and therefore i put it off way too long, and now it's christmas eve, and i've barely done my shopping.

took a long drive up to the airport, to deliver the eleven-year-old to the albuquerque-kansas city flight, to go visit her sister and niece - the niece is so close to her in age that they are fast friends. the road to albuquerque is very remote, and takes four hours. it goes through oscura, the cut-off to the trinity site, and the valley of fire, a remote place with wild rock formations. near the tiny town of san antonio (new mexico) you sense the bosque and the wetlands as the rio grande is plowing right through the valley. in the bosque you have sand-hill cranes and every imaginable bird, that tries to escape montana winters without leaving the usa altogether, but you don't see them from the road, or at least, i didn't. then finally up through socorro and las lunes to the city.

the city was very different from what we're used to. One, free book libraries on every block, that are somewhat like standing bird houses, redwood or whatever, pretty, with interesting books inside. it might be that some people actually read them. i have a shed full of them, and would simply like to unload them as they are doing nothing but taking up space. but in this case, i can tell, at least some people are keeping track: what's popular, what's not, what can be read here. interesting.

all the houses are stucco, my sister says, fake adobe. and lots of dogs being walked, all over the place. this could be a sunday thing, or an albuquerque thing, i have no idea.

the eleven-year-old is a brave soul, going off on a flight by herself, an unaccompanied minor, as they call her, met at the other end by her brother-in-law, who, in fact, is more like an uncle. it is not easy to set off into a cold winter grayness, uncertain future, just trusting the grownups around you that it will all work out.

and i, personally, become more hesitant each day, barely wanting to set out into a four-hour drive, through oscura and god-knows-where, to one more new city.

somewhere out there, in the middle of the night, i came flying over a hill and there was a huge elk in the road. this was not near our house, where i kind of expect such things, but more near the valley of fire where i had just got in the lull of going way too fast, using high beams, staying between the lines. the elk and i worked it out. i swerved a little; he ambled off, caught in the high beams for a minute but well aware that ambling was his best option. i'm grateful. the adrenaline caused by that little incident lasted two more hours, and was just enough to get me home, at about twelve thirty in the morning. there were lots more elk out this way, outside of the village, on my way to our land, but i know those personally - i hit one, a summer or two ago, and she looked right at me as she smashed in my drivers-side door and ran off. i was happy to see that as far as i can tell, she has a family, so she's better now, and hanging around the side of the road at night, eating grasses for her main course, then coming up onto the road itself for a little salt to help put the whole thing down. whatever their system, they've worked it out, and they are surviving, as should we.