Sarah and I went to a corn maze in Las Cruces with our squadron last night. It was a lot of fun, although much less idylic than the pictures online made it seem. Somehow, I saw that coming. There were thousands of screaming children running around underfoot in the entrance area. There were also two small goat pens with goat stairs and a catwalk (goatwalk?) in between them. Of course, there were more screaming children poking the goats with corn stalks. They didn't seem to mind too much though.

Fortunately, things calmed down considerably once we got into the maze. We wandered around for a good hour and had a great time.

Also, Sarah's slippers fit inside of mine.

hiking in Cloudcroft

Today we went hiking in Cloudcroft with the Johnsons again, and this time the Fulsons came along. This time, we decided to tackle the Trestle trail. I had heard that it was 7 miles each way, and I planned on only doing part of it. Fortunately when we got there we realized how incredibly wrong I had been; It was only a couple of miles altogether.







Just like last week, it seemed to be a day made just for hiking that trail. The leaves were turning
and the air was just starting to be crisp. Instead of an earthy smell, this trail had the smell of pine. It took us a while to get to the bottom, passing some beautiful scenery, and we enjoyed ourselves for a while once we were at the trestle. The way back up was a bit more difficult.

Afterwards we stopped in Cloudcroft for a bite to eat and some ice cream. We also walked into the world-famous (at least in Alamogordo) pie store, and even though it was not a very busy part of the day for them, it smelled absolutely delicious.

Another beautiful day.

Canadian Thanksgiving

Today was Canadian Thanksgiving, and the Air Force was kind enough to give me the day off. Actually, it's Columbus Day too, which is an excellent day to give somebody an antique compass.

But, because we had the day off Sarah and I went hiking in Cloudcroft with Sara and Jeff. We took a nice hike on the OSHA trail, and decided that today was the penultimate day to go hiking in Cloudcroft. The leaves were the perfect shades, halfway fallen on the trail. The weather was a perfect blend of crisp and comfortable. The earthy smell and tree-canopied trail reminded me of Narnia. Even the gopher holes in the clearing seemed to take on a mythical beauty.




We also decided to cook a turkey and have some people over in celebration of Thanksgiving, so we roasted our first turkey and whipped together a Thanksgiving dinner in record time. It was delicious. Sarah worked incredibly hard, but it was worth it because we had so much good food and fun. We tried a spice-rubbed turkey with cranberry barbecue sauce. Mmm-mmmm.



Happy Thanksgiving everyone!