This trip had as its primary purpose attendance at Vic’s 50^the reunion of Los Alamos 
High School Class of 1950-1952. It was scheduled for last June, but the Los Alamos
fires were burning wildly just before the scheduled date so the reunion was 
postponed until the end of September. In talking to residents of Los Alamos, 
it appears that life only began to have a semblance of normalcy at the 
beginning of September, so we were lucky that we didn’t have to postpone 
it a second time.

We left DC on Thursday morning, flying First Class (on frequent flyer miles)
through Chicago to Albuquerque. Judy drove with us to the airport – her plane
 back to San Francisco left an hour after ours.

The flight was uneventful except that my laptop ran out of power. I discovered that
 the plane had power outlets but they required an adaptor and probably a 
transformer. The outlets were round and smaller than automobile cigarette 
lighter outlets. They also probably were 6v dc power. A trip to Radio Shack 
is in order.

We landed around 2pm and drove to Taos to visit with our friend Josie who 
is a psychoanalyst. She had designed and supervised a magnificent house 
with round rooms and had created hundreds of decorated tiles for the kitchen, 
bathrooms, and virtually every other area of the house. The whole affair 
was spacious and personalized.

Dinner was at the Trading Post south of town. Excellent food,

Dinner was at the Trading Post south of town. Excellent food, friendly and adequate service, informal 
atmosphere. I had Roast Pork Wellington, Reba and Josie got salmon. We had split 
a pate appetizer and a Caesar salad and only had room to split a pecan pie 
dessert. Considering the quality and quantity of food, the prices were cheap.

Saturday morning we drove to Espanola, ate in a backwater eatery where we had 
excellent green pepper chile on burrito/eggs. It is hard to get a bad meal 
on the road these days. We then stopped by to visit my Aunt Virginia whom we 
had not seen in 15 years or more. We chatted about family matters and left on 
a high note.

We arrived in Los Alamos 2pm and hit the Hilltop House, a Best Western. 
Quite nice. We cleaned up and rested until the 5:30pm reception. Something 
close to 100 people attended the reunion – primarily the classes of 1950-1952. 
Refreshments included an excellent guacamole. Soft drinks were served as 
well as harder stuff. Surprisingly, bottled water was given equal status, 
and I must have downed a six-pack. The altitude and low humidity are 
dehydrating.

We renewed acquaintances with my 1952 classmates whom we last saw three 
years ago, and had a fine time with members of the other classes, most of whom 
I hadn’t seen in fifty years. Fortunately, the nametags had large printing, reducing 
somewhat the need to stare. Moreover, pictures had been reproduced from the 
high school yearbooks so that you could connect the name with a face you 
might recall and the face of today. It worked better in concept than in practice. 
But every bit helps.

After the reception we had dinner, eating some excellent Mexican food in the motel 
dining room. We had everything covered with green pepper chile. Good.

Then we caught up with some straggling groups of attendees, mainly determining 
who was not here and why.

We had breakfast of sorts (motel continental ordinaire), and started on the trip 
report. At noon we went to the picnic lunch, located in a nice picnic area. Good 
food, good weather, and nice conversation with friendly people.

We went to the picnic with Vern Bell and his wife Marilyn. Afterwards, Verne took 
us for a trip around the town to see the fire damage. Some areas were totally 
wiped out and the land bulldozed. Other areas were totally untouched. In between 
were areas where the wind had blown the fire helter skelter, burning this house 
and leaving that. Of course even the houses that survived had extensive smoke 
damage that makes some of them unlivable. Clothes, closets, and walls retained
 the pungent smoke odor. The desk clerk at the motel told us that she had just 
bought $3,000 worth of meat (half a cow and half a pig) when the fire hit and 
power was cut. It will be years before the physical and psychological damage 
can be repaired.

Our evening dinner-dance went well, with an excellent prime rib surprising us. 
We then chatted with classmates, skipped the noisy dance and called it a night. 
It was an excellent anniversary.

The reunion wrapped up with a brunch and an emotional round of farewells. 
Everybody sang Happy Anniversary to us and we were given 2 long carnations.

The next joint reunion will be in 2005. We are talking about a population of 65-68 
year olds, some of whom aren’t going to make it until then. That realization 
weighed heavily as we said good-bye. It is amazing how much bonding can 
take place in a few days among people who haven’t seen each other in 50 years, 
since they were teen-agers.

We then went back to Pojoaque to visit again with my Aunt Virginia who is 82 
years old. She is sprightly and her paintings are better than ever. The moral 
to this story is to stay close to your relations; they often are really nice people.

After that we stopped in Santa Fe and bought a few things in the Plaza. The 
weather was gorgeous and the shops had very pretty items, but we didn’t 
need anything and had bracelets, bolos, and all the other stuff in abundance, 
so we got a couple of tee shirts and not much else.

We finished the day by driving to Albuquerque to a very nice B&B. Our room 
had a Jacuzzi for two and we took advantage of it. <g> We had dinner with 
a classmate at the Prairie Star, a really fine restaurant with an inventive chef.

It was a long day but a good one.

Today we took advantage of the breakfast at the B&B, a good one. We weren’t in 
much of hurry to go anywhere very fast and didn’t. On the way to lunch, we stopped 
at Old Town Albuquerque, peeking here and there in the plaza, but didn’t see 
anything new or exciting.

Lunch was with Sean LaRouche at a place called the Raging Shrimp. Excellent 
food. Sean is a folk music booking agent and a savvy guy. We had fun talking 
about all aspects of the folk business.

We wrapped up the day by driving to Gallup, on the AZ NM border. We left 
Albuquerque with a quarter of a tank of gas on the gauge and finally found a 
filling station when we were close to empty. Turned out we had had almost 
3 gallons left but we were beginning to get a bit nervous. There are a lot of 
miles between filling stations in this part of the country.

The Mazda we are renting has a CD player but no tape player. Normally this 
would have been a plus, and we have indeed been listening to disks. However 
we brought a talking book with us and wanted to listen to it. So we went to a 
Wal-Mart and bought an AM/FM tape boom box for $9.99 and a set of 
batteries and we were all set. We listened to the first three sides on the 
road to Gallup. The book is "A Walk In The Woods." The author, Bill Bryson, 
decided to walk the Appalachian Trail from end to end – 2150 miles. 
Although you might expect it to be slow moving, it really is very enjoyable.

Tomorrow we will see the Painted Desert and the Petrified Forest. Stay tuned.

Today we started off by visiting the Painted Desert and Petrified Forest in 
Arizona. We first visited the information center and saw a movie about the 
area. The movie was very good, and the Painted Desert was spectacular. 
The Petrified Forest was a bit disappointing, lacking color and diversity. 
We ate lunch at the Fred Harvey managed restaurant at the information 
center. We had a Navajo taco, which turned out to be chile on Navajo flat 
bread. Worth the whole trip.

We then went to the La Posada hotel in Winslow. This was the last of the Fred 
Harvey hotels to be built. It looks like the hacienda of a wealthy Spanish aristocrat. 
The floors are planks and polished stone. Everything about the place seems old 
and costly – definitely a vacation hotel rather than a modern business hotel. 
Of course, we are on vacation….

We listened to the debates before we went to dinner. The debates were a yawn, 
with Gore throwing too many numbers around and Bush showing his lack of 
national experience.

As to dinner, everything was closed by the time we were ready for it. We couldn’t 
find anything very clean that was open, and ended up in Church’s Chicken, a fast 
food place with surprisingly good fried chicken and mashed potatoes.

Wednesday October 4

La Posada turned out pretty well. The owner told us he was going to put modern 
phones in all rooms next year and the restaurant will be ready in a couple of 
weeks. What a business.

After breakfast we headed West and then South to Sedona. The canyon road 
was gorgeous, with tall sharp mountains, colored red and layered. The town is 
one big boutique, with classy shops and a lot of variety. We bought a few things, 
had an excellent lunch, and left the beauty of the place with reluctance.

We then headed to the railhead, the town of Williams. The Fray Marcos Hotel 
is large and well equipped. We had a nice dinner as part of our Grand Canyon 
Train Package and are looking forward to the train ride to the canyon.

Thursday October 5

Today we took the Grand Canyon Train to the Grand Canyon, about a two hour 
trip, sitting in a dome car and enjoying the scenery and camaraderie. Before 
the train left, the company staged a very funny High Noon that started 
everything on the right foot (at the end of the day, the bad guys held up the train, 
losing out to the Marshal aboard the train).

When we arrived at the GC, we had a good lunch and then a bus trip around the South and the West rims. The sky was blue, the gorge was colorful, and the guide brought great knowledge to the visit. It was a magnificent view and a wonderful wrap-up for the trip.

After we got back we listened to the VP debate. Too bad the VP candidates 
weren’t running for President. This was a far better presentation of values.

We left Williams around 9:30 am, heading back to Gallup, 240 miles East on I-40. 
We made it uneventfully 4 hours later. You can do that on roads in the West that 
have 75 mph speed limits. There are loads of trucks on the interstates, also 
barreling along at 75-80 and they will run you down and cut in front of you if 
you don’t maintain top speed. I-40 is as bad as I-81 in West Virginia.

We got to our hotel in plenty of time to be able to greet Victoria Smith who took 
the day off of work and drove down from Farmington, NM (over 100 miles) just 
to see us. We had fun talking and giggling, then took a rest, and then went to 
Ceceles, a fine little steak and seafood house. I had a New York strip steak 
smothered in green pepper chili and a little cheese. I ordered it reluctantly 
because I couldn’t see how the chili could improve the steak but it did. 
Very good. We rolled out of the place stuffed and somewhat besodden 
after the three of us had finished a bottle of wine.

The Albuquerque Balloon Festival kicked off this morning. We watched an hour or 
so, mesmerized by the magnificence of these hot air balloons in all shapes, 
sizes, and colors. There were elephants, tigers, all sorts of TV comedy 
characters, as well as brightly paneled conventional balloons. Some 1100 
balloons were expected, an enormous number since the festivals I have 
heard of run around 125. This morning the weather was very good for balloons.

We met Victoria for breakfast and then went downtown to visit the jewelry stores. 
The Indian Pawn jewelry shops had prices varying all over the lot, with some huge 
pieces of turquoise but we passed them by in favor of shops with more delicate 
features. Victoria bought some very simple rings and a very pretty turquoise ring 
with needle turquoise insets. I got an inlaid bolo and Reba got a matching pin. 
We didn’t buy much but what we did get was well worth it.

The three of us had a light lunch and said goodbye reluctantly. Then Reba drove 
from Gallup to Albuquerque, mostly in a cold heavy rain. The afternoon ballooning 
was cancelled because of the weather, which made traffic fairly normal, so we 
were able to reach our motel in good time. Fortunately we had reservations 
because they front desk person said there were no unreserved rooms for 
150 miles of Albuquerque.

We had dinner at the Rio Grande Yacht Club across the street from the motel. 
Again the food was good. Reba had chicken breast with green chile and I had 
ribs.

No balloons to watch on TV – still raining nastily. We caught our flight to Dallas, 
having an uneventful trip. We boarded the flight to DC, but it had mechanical 
problems which took 90 minutes to not fix. Then we raced to get a replacement 
aircraft which was indeed waiting for us. We finally landed two hours late but 
happy.

This was a magnificent anniversary trip thanks to my classmates and good 
friends. Life doesn’t get better.