A Day With the Dead

Astro D had a series of two stamps that she had placed at our Santa Fe SPOOKtacular Letterboxing Event back in 2007. She had decided not to leave them at the place we held the event, so she took them home and marked them as unavailable. She had always planned to rehide the boxes and had picked out a new spot. But as we all know life can get in the way of plans and the boxes remained unavailable until today. She found the boxes in her closet a while back and decided it was time to get them back out there. So yesterday she called me to see if I wanted to accompany her when she went to replant them. And I decided it would be a nice outing and I like the trail she wanted to place them on so I jumped at the chance to go with her. The name of the boxes are Cancion de Amor and La Catrina and the series is called Day of the Dead. So she decided that a good spot to put Day of the Dead boxes would be on a trail to a ghost town. Our destination today was the Glorieta Conference Center and the trail to Glorieta Ghost Town.

I arrived at Astro D's house at about 9:00am and we chatted a bit and then hopped into the car and started our trip. On the way to Glorieta we pulled off the Interstate at a little Civil War Memorial/Museum. I have passed this place quite a few times and never even noticed it. It was a little strange and a little interesting. We only spent a little time here before heading out, but I think I might stop again next time I am in the area. We arrived at the conference center, parked and headed for the trailhead. We had a leisurely walk and just talked about everything and nothing. At one point we thought we may have passed the landmark that Astro D was wanting because we were talking and not paying attention. One of the nice things about the walk was all the wildflowers - they were everywhere - it was wonderful. Eventually we reached the first old car and Astro D searched for a spot for one of the boxes. I took some pictures while she hid the box and wrote the clues. Once we were done there we headed back the way we came. There was still one box to plant (and on our way we passed a tree that would make a good landmark) so we walked back to that tree and looked around for a spot to plant the box. We eventually found a good spot, hid the box and Astro D jotted down the clues. Now it was back to the car. We left the conference center and decided to check out a Civil War Site. We both had read about a battlefield that had been closed to the public but was recently opened. We found a fenced parking area and a couple of plaques but not really any hiking trail or battlefield. Not sure if we were in the right place - I will have to do more research.

By this time it was a little after noon and we were both hungry. We were going to stop at Real Food Nation but they were closed so we ended up at Harry's Road House and had lunch out in the courtyard. We relaxed and talked and ate - it was a nice lunch. After lunch we drove around town, stopped at Cost Plus, went look at a couple of statues and then ended up back at Astro D's to end the day. It was a great letterboxing outing and is always fun spending time with Astro D - thanks Astro D for a great day.