Spring Break Update

I’m sitting in sunny New Mexico, safely tucked away from the ferocious chilly wind in my grandparents’ house. Winter is just leaving here. There are traces of ice yet on the ground and in the distant mountains, but here at the school, at 6,600 feet above sea level, it’s 65 degrees in the sunshine. Red dirt and tumbleweed are everywhere, and the spring winds are picking up.

My grandparents are gone this week, and my parents and I are enjoying the use of their home while my dad renovates a house that he and my mom will live in for awhile. These homes are on the property of a Christian Reformed School that ministers to students living on the Navajo reservation over yonder. “Over yonder” can mean anything from the houses on the next hill to the houses on the mountains across the highway. This school has been on old Route 66 for over one hundred years, and its housing is showing its wear. Most of the teachers live in trailers, but the property is zoned for houses, and my dad will be building the houses that will replace the trailers. Eventually, they might even build some condominiums so that the teachers can retire near the school they love so much.

While he’s been tearing out stairs and my mom’s been picking out furniture, I’ve been curled up on a lazy-boy with books about civil war in Guatemala, my taxes, and my computer. I basically changed my working location for a week—it’s so sunny outside and I don’t have to cook! I’m starting to dread the overcast weather of Pittsburgh again.

It’s inevitable that during a break from a busy semester routine, a student or teacher will get sick with the yucky common cold. This common cold, which clogs the sinuses and slows the brain, has great effects of lethargy on the body. I felt my cold coming on last week, and try as I might, I couldn’t avoid its conquest of my immune system.

Being sick, however, forces me to be nice to myself. So, even though I have a to-do list that’s fairly lengthy, I’m not going to do all of it. I do a bit, take a nap, do a bit more, go for a walk, do a bit more, take another nap, eat dinner with whomever is around, do a bit more, watch television, go to sleep. Not a bad vacation.

On Tuesday, Mom and I hiked something called “pyramid trail,” which Mom says is the most difficult hike she’s ever taken. Someone had suggested the hike to us rather flippantly, so Mom and I didn’t think anything of venturing out onto a desert mountain with just a water bottle and a couple of cough drops. Oops. The hike took us a thousand feet up into the Hogback Mountains and snow covered hills we had seen from a distance. We used all the water and cough drops before we got back down. Both of us felt as if we were in the middle of a scene from a Louis L’Amour novel, walking the red ridges of New Mexico with mountains on one side and a valley town on the other. Since Mom’s feet struggle against the deterioration of rheumatoid arthritis, I was particularly proud of her for conquering the adventure.

Tomorrow one of the girls from the school is taking me on something called the “crevice hike.” From what I can gather, the crevice is an elevator shaft climb. Apparently, it’s “the” hike to take at this school. I’m so excited.

The week will top off tomorrow night at a famous local pub with a band named “Subtle Groove.”

On Saturday—when another winter storm is predicted for the Midwest / Northeast—I’ll fly back to the grind and enjoy the coming of spring in Pittsburgh.

All in all, there’s really no better place to be when you’re sick: with your parents in a cozy house in the sunshine, with the promise of a few hikes here and there. It’s a good week.