*catching a replay of the Friday night concert on the Dave Matthews channel on satellite radio this morning - and came in just as they started my favorite song from the concert
*seeing my first Rufous Hummingbird of the season
*baby hawks in their nest

On Monday, my husband and I took a vacation day and went on a day trip. We drove north to the Valles Caldera, a huge crater from a volcanic explosion about 1.25 million years ago. Of course now it doesn't really look like a crater - it's filled with beautiful grasslands and rock formations, surrounded by the Jemez mountains.

We stopped at the Jemez Pueblo reservation, and bought some Indian pottery, one piece from the gift shop, and one from a man who was sitting outside with a table covered with his creations. We enjoyed talking with him. Then we drove through the town of Jemez Springs and on to the Valles Caldera.

There were prairie dogs everywhere, scampering and squeaking and eating grass. We also saw a variety of birds, including two nests full of baby barn swallows on the porch of the visitor center. We also stopped by the cabin which was Walt Longmire's cabin in the series Longmire. While we were there, another couple stopped by to see the cabin. They were from Seattle and were watching the series. (we just finished watching it recently.) We told them that the town scenes were filmed in Las Vegas NM. We took each other's pictures on the cabin porch.

Of course, we needed to have food on this trip. I made up salmon salad, and we made sandwiches and brought along the leftover salmon salad and some crackers as well. We also had some yam cakes, celery, cucumber, plain Greek yogurt and sliced strawberries, and apples. The leftover salmon came in handy on the drive back when I needed a snack.

We hadn't taken a day trip in a while - weekends seem to be spent cleaning and running errands these days. We decided we need to make it a priority to do it more often.

Allison