TuzigootJournal: Vegas Weekend

Dear Family and Friends:

This past weekend we traveled (by car, not Tuzigoot) to Las Vegas, New Mexico, Susie's NM home town, to attend homecoming festivities at her alma mater, Highlands University. Here's a brief report and several pictures.

We left on Friday, which happened to be my birthday, and we celebrated that by stopping on the way in Santa Fe for fish tacos at my favorite Mexican seafood restaurant. I have sampled fish taco offerings far and wide, and these are still the best.

Homecoming started with a brunch Saturday morning for the class of '59. Around a dozen members of that class were there and they shared lots of fond, sometimes funny, memories of their Highlands days. One frequent memory was of Susie playing Ado Annie in Oklahoma!

Saturday afternoon was parade time. Fifty years ago the Highland U drum major was none other than the lovely and talented Susie Hughes:

Here's a portion of the class of '59 on parade in 2009. They actually sang the school fight song ("Cowboys the best in the west, ... ) occasionally, but I didn't get to hear it. Actually, they closed the brunch by bellowing out the fight song and if you're not careful, Susie will do it voluntarily should you happen to mention Highlands U in her presence.

Saturday night was football and unfortunately the home team had a tough night -- and have had several tough years. We and several of the class of '59 stayed until the end, though, and got to see quite a nice choreographed fireworks show.

Sunday morning we took a particularly scenic route home, going north and west from Las Vegas. This took us through some scenic ranch land and ancient villages, then over the Sangre de Cristo mountains, topping out at about 9500 ft. Here are a couple fall color pictures.

We were impressed by the early snow on the Truchas Peaks.

We had lunch at the Sipapu Ski Lodge cafe, then picked up the art show along the "High Road to Taos." One reason we took this route was that we had read that many of the arts and craft galleries along this road from Chimayo to Taos were having open houses this weekend. Among other things, this meant free snacks. We browsed and nibbled our way home. Susie found a knit head band; I found an old barn to snap.