On our way out of town, I drove the kids to see my childhood home. It's pretty much a dump. I'm not sure how much nicer it was when we lived there; my mom and sisters struggled pretty hard when we moved there right after the divorce. This didn't keep me from walking around the entire house (which was vacant and for rent), peeking in every window, going down my checklist of memories prior to age 5 when we moved to Texas.
Our best neighbors, Mr. & Mrs. Garcia, are still living there according to the garden stone with Garcia carved on it. (I guess there actually are people who stay put in a house and grow roots.) Anyway, I loved this man as a child and was very aware of how clean and tidy their house was. The living room was a bit dark and cool and they had a squishy couch and a piano with pictures of their family up on the wall. This impressed me then and I was dying to see if they remembered their darling 3 year old neighbor from so long ago. No one was home, so I left a note on the porch...
After a visit to Walgreens for Ava's prescription, we headed to Santa Fe. What a treat to pull into Corona, NM for gas and a snack. I saw CAFE painted on the side of a wall and told the kids, "Check this place out! It looks like the Wild West. I'm certain cowboys used to come here. If these people left it would look exactly like a ghost town!" I should have known this would open an entirely new bottle of questions, "Do ghosts live here? Well, is this a real ghost town? Are there real cowboys here? Do ghosts eat? Do cowboys?"
This is actually making me think of something back at the Tucson Dude Ranch. We walked into dinner and a very nice woman from Illinois was sitting there. She invited us to her table and I said, "Are you sure? You do realize we come loud and loaded with questions, right?" She was so wonderful with the kids, engaging them all in their various conversations (at nearly the same time) and answering all the personal questions they asked her. For example, here's what I could hear of Doodle's conversation as she took the floor:
"What color are you eyes?" brown
"I like pink." what else do you like?
"Oh, well I'm also interested in Belle and Jasmine." oh princesses!
"What does your house look like?" very patient detailed description
"Why are you so sad that your dog died?" well, she was my companion
"Why was she your companion?" well...
And when she told us about Shelby, the dear dog she'd just put down, Peanut and Little Man couldn't wait to tell her all about our pets. Sure we have the lovey Samson cat and the feisty Delilah cat, but they were particularly interested in telling her about Atlas, my beloved cat of so many years and how he met his end. "Well, my mom named him Atlas because he was so huge, but then she took us to school, and when she got home she remembered something in the house she'd forgotten, and she ran in to get it, and when she came out Atlas had run under the car and she ran over him! But we burned him and then we buried him under a tree we planted for him. It makes her sad, too." Breath. Little Man added that we put a rock there that said Atlas and Peanut corrected him by saying, "No it's a big stone that says In Loving Memory, Atlas." Would you believe this gracious woman actually chose to sit with us for breakfast!
So where was I? Corona, NM. We walked into El Corral Cafe, which was virtually empty save the pictures of Indian Chiefs all around (can you imagine the questions from the kids???). The owner, Kathia Beltran, got us situated and I quickly realized she was una mexicana. Jumping at the chance to practice my Spanish, she was a little stunned and pleased all at the same time, assuming we were up from El Paso. I told her our story and very slowly her family started to emerge from the back -- her daughter, her mother Nubia, her uncle, her friend with her son. It took about 3 minutes and I knew I'd love to be this woman's friend. She told every person who walked in what we were doing and that we speak espanol. I felt like a proud student once again!
In fact, if I haven't mentioned my love for the Spanish language and culture, especially Mexican, let me do so now. I love it. All of it. I love it so much I want to live in Mexico someday and make tortillas and sit around with other women complaining and loving nos maridos.
She served us the daily special (Rick Steeves always says order the daily special), chimichunga with green chile sauce, rice and salad. Apparently Cowboy Punch is only available in Arizona (iced-tea with lemonade) so the kids got a real caffeine treat and I let them drink pure iced-tea. It only now occurs to me that's why they didn't fall asleep in the car! If you ever find yourself traveling out here, stop at this wonderful cafe in Corona, NM and meet the wonderful Familia Beltran who run it.
About 2 seconds after we left this cafe, a warning light came on in our car -- low air pressure in the tires. I went back to the gas station only to find they didn't have air so I flagged a guy in a big pick-up and he directed me to the other side of town (2 or 3 blocks away) where there was a mechanic. Perfect! This kind young man with oiled hands checked each tire and filled them up properly. We agreed on 5 bucks for the job. We were discussing the rain and how happy everyone but us was to see it arrive. He informed me that even if it wasn't raining, it'd be this cold. We were in the high desert now with a 6,685 elevation, supposedly the highest train crossing...which is why this isty-bitsy town is called Corona, the crown of New Mexico.
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