Day 72, 6/4/09 -- EBEX in Santa Fe!

Well, due to all the bad weather, people have scattered. We found out today that FIREBall is going to try launching again tomorrow, and then the weather gets really bad (hail, lightning, frogs falling form skies, etc.) for the next two days after that.

Because we don't have a chance at launching, Ilan and Shaul have gone back to Minnesota, Amber and Britt to New York. This morning, Will and I drove to Albuquerque to drop Michele off at the airport for a flight to Oakland so he could visit some friends in Berkeley for a few days. From there, we drove north on I-25 to Santa Fe, where we met two other cars containing Hannes, François, Milligan, Kate, Jeff, Joy, and Daniel.

The first order of business was, of course, lunch. We were all starving, and we found a place called The Shed in the downtown Santa Fe that, frankly, was delicious. It's not that Fred's is so bad, but it's not really...good. This food was good. I had forgotten how good food could be. We then sorted out lodging, and Will ran an errand (to send a gift to his daughter whose birthday is coming up).

After that, on a recommendation of one of Jeff's friends, we took a hike up the Atalaya trail. Starting at about 7500 feet, the trail takes a couple of miles to go up to the peak at approximately 9100 feet. It turns out that most of us in the group are pretty out of shape. It took a good hour to get up there, taking a few rests here and there to let our weary calves rest, but it was well worth it once we got to the top. On the way down, most of us at some point or another took to running down the trail, which was lots of fun and everybody managed not to trip and fall. Our legs will definitely be feeling the effects tomorrow though.

After cleaning ourselves up, we walked back into downtown for dinner. After a bit of wandering, we re-found an Indian restaurant that Will and I had seen earlier in the day. It was decent Indian food, but the main point is that it was Indian food -- something that many of us haven't seen for over two months.

After that, we went to a bar called Cowgirl that Jeff was really dying to go to. We hung out there for a while and eventually made our way back to the motel.

http://picasaweb.google.com/asad137/EBEXInNewMexico060409#