Jicarilla Apache lands, Chama Valley and a masterpiece

We left Sarah's and Tory's house on Monday after yet another delicious breakfast including eggs. We visited Sarah's studio and saw many series not seen before, paintings and beaded sculpture, most affectingly including a series about boats. She had done both a sun boat and a moon boat, but the latter was astounding. Clearly a masterpiece! Here's a picture of the fabulous Sarah Teofanov in her kitchen.
After filling our tank at the sign of the sauropod, we drove east through Jicarilla Apache reservation lands, stopping in briefly in Dulce (duls). It's beautiful country with junipers and this time of year, snow on the north sides of hills or outcroppings, very near the Colorado border. The earth there is deep purple--a gorgeous color with the depth of yellow ochre as compliment. Then we crossed the continental divide into the beautiful Chama Valley, site for recreation and horse ranches. Further along, we passed Ghost Ranch where OKeefe worked part of the year on paintings inspired by the surrounding landscape. Here's a picture of the land from Abiquiu Dam looking north east. We ate at the Abiquiu Inn--disappointing, but everyone said we ordered the wrong things. See comments on Trip advisor.

So we pulled into Santa Fe at dusk, checked into our hotel on Cerrillos, and headed to Moria and Steve's where we found we hadn't missed an Easter ham (Beeler's no less!) because old friends Crystal and Wink had just arrived before we did. Moria also served succulent parsnips from their garden, tossed with the most delicious kumquats which C & W brought from their tree in Pasadena. What a feast! Lots of laughing and good cheer. Daughter Natasha was there on break from Mills College in Oakland, California.
Moria and Steve live in a cohousing development which began about 10 years ago. One final home is still being built. The homes have an adobe style architecture and are located near a river wash. They were amazed that WIWAXIA's navigation could find their house #9 in the complex. Of course, we were amazed at the route through the wash (not the only one), but we cheated in a way, looking for California plates knowing Crys and Wink were there. (The secret's out!). Moria shared an amazing fact: the goats they keep there are descendents from Sam Karp's original Saanen herd, from the very farm, Tetridge Dairy, where Alice lived in 1976 and where Jim, visiting the farm on break from UCLA, confused a steer with a goat ("that's the biggest goat I've ever seen"). The owner had lived in Santa Cruz and obtained them after moving to Santa Fe. There are also chickens, dogs and cats. Here's Moria in her living room with some of her paintings on the wall above her. After showing off the video of Robin's graduation speech, Moria, Alice and Tasha watched Dae Jang Geum (also known as The Jewel in the Palace), the episode about the heroine going to Un Ang Temple (I never get sick of it, and it's a very persuasive buddhist story about the importance of cooking with devotion). [More to follow about Santa Fe in the next post.]
Side note about Tetridge Dairy: named after Sam and Janie's cat, Tet, the patriarch of the (was it nine or ten or more?) cat clan at the farm, Tetridge Dairy refers to the Tet offensive which you may recall was the Vietnamese Lunar New Year strategy to go all out against the US military in 1968. Robin wrote a paper about Ursula Le Guin's The Word for World is Forest as a response to the Tet offensive. Tet was a very tough and large tabby.