this past week pt.2

So, after visiting San Jose I flew eastward to Albuquerque, NM for Will and Sarah's wedding. Upon arrival, I was picked up, and we went to a 'hip' area of Alqq.
The following day Erik flew in and a group of us went northwards to Colorado (via Gallup, one of Will's hometowns).

Driving to Colorado we went through a dramatic change of scenery, from urban sprawl, to vast tundra with occasional volcanic rock formations and mesas, to the lush mountain area of south-western Colorado. Here's a few pictures from that passage:




As a brief aside, I'll mention that the night I arrived we stayed at Sarah's family's house. The B family were very hospitable... and they also possessed a curious fascination towards the Rubik's cube (tm). Mr. B had been the first to develop a solution to the 'cube' which fit on a single sheet of paper. All of the friends of both bride and groom who travelled to see them wed were at some point (to greater or lesser extent) students of Mr. B's technique, and I can proudly say that I can finish an rbx cube in roughly five minutes (which is a ridiculously long time these days). /aside

So we journeyed through Navajo country into Colorado and lodged for the night in Will's parent's vacation house in the exceedingly small town of Rico [wikipedia]. Rico is a classic small American town which at one point had a large mining population, but has since dwindled after whatever desirables had been depleted from the earth, and now is of a fluctuating population between roughly... 200-300, depending on the season and people's desires to "get away". We stayed overnight in Rico, then split paths with the ladies, and ventured a little further northward to trek along a very scenic route to the destination of Navajo Lake.

I experienced a pretty significant change of altitudes during these three stages of travel, starting at near sea-level, then going up to about five thousand feet in Alqq., ten thousand in Rico, and twelve thousand feet at Navajo Lake. The hike was not overly strenuous, but I was frequently out of breath from the altitude, and I often paused, particularly during a gruelling set of switch-backs near the end of the trail. Here are some pictures of our hike:
Here we were preparing to go up.

Some bedewed flowers I spotted on the way up.

Destination: valley in the cleft of those high peaks.

Trekking through wild flowers.


The lake was beautiful, and I was astonished at the multitude of wild-flowers at that altitude. Growing up, I'd seen wall-hung placards of mountain scenes with vast fields of bright flowers, often with an appropriate verse from the Bible describing God's grandeur or tender care. At the time I thought the pictures were very strange and foreign because I'd never experienced such a scene in real life. Added to that the verses, and it was downright assembled, and therefore unreal. But the gardens of the mountains do exist, and are so wonderfully arranged as to be easily described as 'perfect natural beauty', which is only truly understandable when experiencing it first hand. And so, I was honestly astonished. Here are some photos of the lake, I took many:



and from the other side

And our evening meal-time:


We camped overnight beside the lake and then returned to Rico, and then to Alqq., more people were arriving for the wedding, and more preparations had to be made. We played frisbee golf. Saturday (the day of the wedding). After a lot of running around, the wedding party had their appropriate clothing, and all was made in readiness. The guests arrived, bringing branches and flowers to decorate the wedding arch. The ceremony was both fun and solemn. Will and Sarah entered into the covenant relationship of marriage. At the reception they danced, and raced each other to solve rbx cubes. It was all very blessed. (c:
Here are a couple pictures of Will and Sarah:



The next morning I woke up early. It is a very good thing that I woke up early because I had a nagging doubt about my actual flight time out of Alqq. back to LA. Calculating backward from my arrival time (which I remembered), I was probably leaving at about.. 1:30-2pm. But that nagging doubt which woke me up and caused me to look through my flight schedule proved most worthy of attention when I found that I actually was to fly out at 8:45am to Phoenix, for a stop-over, and then onward to LA. I quickly packed and attached myself to the appropriate airport run.

To make a longer story shorter (for I was in Phoenix a very long time, met a lovely lady named Fariba, and my flight got delayed), I arrived back in LA.

And that is how this past week went!