Luke the tent-dweller

The final trip in our June travel series was a one-night campout in the Jemez Mountains. Since they’re just an hour and a half away, many ABQ-dwellers retreat to the cooler forests and streams of the Jemez in the summertime. It was so pretty there that I wouldn’t have minded staying two nights, especially considering all the work it takes to pack for camping, no matter how many nights you stay! But the damper on our fun was the rainstorm that settled in over our campsite around 5 pm and continued on until the early morning. The rest of our small group arrived in that time window and so we had to set up and eat dinner in the rain. Sadly we were banking on NM’s arid climate and failed to bring tarps or our table shelter to give us a dry space to hang out in together. So we all headed to bed in our tents on the early side to get out of the rain. Luke clearly didn’t get the extra sleeping memo though. He woke up around midnight and was so distressed by the sounds of wind and rain outside that he had to sleep in my arms for the rest of the night. Wait, I mean toss and turn and prevent me from sleeping or getting comfortable for the rest of the night! But it was sweet how being scared prompted him to hold me tight all night long, if I pulled my hand away from him, he would reach out to pull it back around himself once again. He usually isn’t so snuggly anymore, normally wiggling away if you hold him tight for more than a moment, so I must admit I enjoyed his sweetness for some of those late-night hours.

The lack of sleep must have made me a little loopier than normal, here you see me doing an impression of the snake that I spied peeking through our front storm door. Yes! I looked over and there was a snake head, peering into our house at me! He was just a garter snake or something similar, but I still didn’t think he needed to be scoping out our living room.

Here he is on the run, while Erik pursued with the camera…

But let’s close on the rain topic rather than reptiles. Yesterday we had a good rain here in Albuquerque, so I took Luke outside to explore it. Isn’t he cute in his Daddy’s hat, swishing around in the puddles with his stick?