Back in the High Country again

I’m back in the High Country again, sitting on the couch at Tim and Linda’s Alma, Colo., chalet and gazing out the sliding glass patio doors at clouds gathering over Hoosier Pass.
We rolled in at 7:30 last evening, fresh from a 2,000-mile loop that took us through Illinois, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Utah, Arizona, Utah again and finally Colorful Colorado.
We’ve had Texas barbecue in Amarillo, green chili breakfast burritos in Tucumcari, enchiladas in Moab and huevos rancheros for breakfast this morning in Fairplay, Colo.
Maria’s brother and sister-in-law lived briefly in a Navajo community south of Farmington, NM and we made an accidental pilgrimage there when we missed a turn on our way to Monument Valley. It’s a bleak, sun-blasted, poverty-stricken place called Newcomb and I’m astonished they could stay there more than a week, much less the few months they were there while Deb attempted to teach special needs Indian kids.
We were up before dawn yesterday morning to photograph the Monument Valley sunrise after a pleasant night in our tent at Goulding’s Monument Valley Campground. They had wireless internet (WiFi) at the campground and I was checking my e-mail on a bench outside the campstore when a French tourist with a laptop computer inquired as to whether I had “wee fee.” Maria was completely baffled, thinking it was some French term, but I puzzled it out quickly and then helped him get online.
I spent much of this morning editing photos from a wedding we shot last Saturday. It was our first paying wedding and we learned a lot, not the least of which was that we’re better than we thought.
Now, if we can just book some weddings at a serious rate of pay, we can pay some bills and justify all of this expensive photo equipment.