she's dreaming about New Mexico again. the shiny travelogue rests in her lap as she sips her coffee and takes in the colorful scenes on each page. Santa Fe, Taos, Albuquerque, Roswell, Carlsbad... the Badlands, the Cliff Dwellings, Area 51,  even the duck races of Deming pull her in. Wishing dreaming, hoping, that some day she will travel the roads that make up the 5th largest state.

When she was a teenager she traveled through lower New Mexico with her parents. She stood on the dunes of sand, so blinding white; it was like snow to her northwest eyes. She took the tour of the Carlsbad Caverns and learned how dark dark really is. But the trip, just a few days as they passed through on their way to someplace else, only whetted her appetite for the flavors of the southwest. She wants to go back and explore all the things she saw as a child, through mature eyes, eyes that will fully appreciate the history and heritage of the land. She wants to spend leisurely days walking the museums, taking in the town squares, touching the landscape. She wants to drink deeply from the artists renditions. she wants to grace her arms and fingers with authentic turquoise, she wants to drive Route 66 in a convertible, wind tousling her hair.

As the rain beats against her windows for the 9th day in a row, and the fire crackles and her coffee grows cold and stale, she whets a finger and turns another page. Someday she will go there. And she will not be disappointed.