October 1, 2026 From NYC to Albuquerque Breakfast - with Ryan. Lunch - Ham and Cheese Sandwich on flight from NYC to Denver. Dinner - Quesadilla at home.
An interesting occurrence motivated us to come home one day early.
Every year Suzette attempts to register with DIA Trust for a visit to the Lightning Field, an environmental art work by Walter De Maria in western New Mexico,Four hundred Lightning rods planted vertically in a one mile by one kilometer rectangle with a small cabin to house attendees. There is no cost and the one night experience includes a box dinner and a drive to the site from Quemado by DIA attendants. Registration begins and ends moments after reservations for the year open on February 1. There are an extremely limited number of reservations for the stormy late summer and early fall monsoon season.
Suzette registered this year and got lucky and made the waiting list and got even luckier and received a text on Wednesday, September 30, that there had been a cancellation and we had been selected to go on October 1, today. There only hitch was that there have been record torrential rains this last week in New Mexico due to the convergence of Typhoon Polo, the Monsoon, and a very strong Pacific waters’ warming from the El Niño effect that made it uncertain if the site was accessible by DIA’s jeep.
We were told Dia would confirm availability for tomorrow today if the weather cleared. So we rebooked our flight from Friday to today, Thursday at 4:35 from La Guardia through Dallas to arrive in Albuquerque by 10:30, so we could drive to Quemado on Friday.
We did not sleep well Wednesday night and got up early to pack, but were confronted by the problem of packing the wooden panel we bought at the Asia Society Museum yesterday because it had two sets of legs attached to the panel and would not fit in our duffel bag. We measured the 20 x 22 inch panel and determined that it would fit in the duffel bag if the legs were removed. The legs were connected to the panel by eight Phillips screws, so we needed to remove the screws and pack the legs and panel separately. I ate the yogurt, granola, and fresh fruit for breakfast around 6:00 and we showered and dressed and went next door to the 24 hour East Village Market for cups of fresh squeezed orange juice, and a coffee for Suzette and a bagel with cream cheese for me. After we ate, we asked the manager if they had a Phillips screwdriver we could borrow and they did so we went back to the room and disassembled the legs from the panel and finished packing. We returned the screwdriver around 9:30 and communicated with Ryan and arranged to meet at a coffee shop on 2nd Ave., but when we got there there were no tables and chairs suitable for a conversation, so we picked Molly’s two blocks away on St. Marks to meet and walked there. Ryan arrived around 10:30 and we spoke for about an hour and then he walked with us back to our hotel. When we returned Suzette noticed a message from Southwest that our flight to Dallas had been delayed until 8:30 due to bad weather in Dallas, which meant we would not make the connecting flight to Albuquerque, and thus miss our possible reservation for the Lightning Field.
Suzette called Southwest and was able to book an earlier 2:00 flight to Denver. So at 12:00 we dragged our two suitcases and the duffel bag to the street and hailed a taxi that drove us to La Guardia. We arrived at our gate for the flight a bit after 1:00 and made the flight, but also received a text from Dia that the reservation for Friday was cancelled because the road to the Lightning Field was under water.
Both of our flights were delayed, so Suzette bought a ham sandwich, a bag of potato chips, and a Dr. Pepper that we ate during the 3 1/2 hour flight to Denver. We arrived in Albuquerque around 8:40 instead of 7:20 and were thrilled to see Willy in the Highlander at the airport. He drove us home and helped carry the suitcases and duffel into the house.
We settled in after our frenetic day of travel, but there was little food for a dinner, except some flour tortillas and a small wedge of Jarlsberg cheese, so we made a cheese quesadilla and brewed a cup of herbal tea for dinner that we ate as we looked through a portion of the month’s accumulation of mail.
Later I checked my portfolio and discovered that in the month we were gone it had increased by 6%, which raises the question, How can the stock market be doing so well when the economic conditions and political wrangling in the world are so terrible?
I accumulated 6262 steps today walking around the East Village and through three airports.
Bon Appetit
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