Tony Scott - Along Came COVID - Love and Loss in the 2020 Pandemic

“We need to explore some of this state when we get some time off,” she said. “Just listening to Angie talk about Shiprock and the Monument Park area, what I’ve read of White Sands and the Carlsbad Caverns, there is a lot to see.”

“You know those are all a long way from here,” Josh said. “This state is enormous. Carlsbad is a four-and-a-half-hour drive. Shiprock’s almost four.”

“Yeah. Remember Betsy? She was from Farmington and said it was three hours, and Shiprock is beyond that. But it would be fun anyway. We haven’t even been to Santa Fe and that’s only an hour.”

They moved toward the gift shop and found a map of the hiking trails atop the peak. “Do you want to explore one of these?” he asked.

“Of course. Let’s go.” She started toward one of the wider trails leading toward Sandia Crest, apparently uninterested in planning by map.

“Hey, wait!” he shouted when he noticed she was a hundred yards away. He ran to catch up.

“It’s nice up here,” she said, marching along bobbing her head from right to left. “I wonder if that’s Santa Fe,” she said and pointed to a developed area against the mountains to the northeast.

“I imagine. I don’t think there are any other cities in that direction.” He picked up a large pinecone and handed it to her.

She looked at it in her hand. “This is huge,” she said. “You could play softball with this,” and pitched it at him.

He caught it in his hand, looked at it again, and threw in back in the general area where he had found it. For a distance, the pine needles crunched under their feet, the snow squeaked, and the gravel growled its opinion. Birds flitted around from tree to tree, the sun blinked between tree trunks, and the shadows of branches played tag along the trail.

In a few more minutes, she was out against the edge of the ridge looking down into the canyon, thousands of feet below. “This is amazing,” she said. “Look, you can see the trail go all the way around the canyon and disappear at the bottom. Is that the trail you take if you want to walk down?”

“I think so,” he said. “We should try that, but maybe in the summer.”

“Good idea.”

At this point the trail had narrowed, and there was snow on both sides, especially under the trees. She picked up a ball of snow and threw it at Josh, completely missing. He retaliated. The ensuing snowball fight lasted until they were in each other’s arms. After a kiss, they resumed their stroll.

Josh wandered out onto a large bare granite outcropping, painted with lichen, patched with snow, and fully in the sun. A marmot poked its head up to check them out, then scurried off out of view. From that vantage point, the Sangre de Cristo mountains to the north came into better view, completely snow-capped, bright on the sunny slopes, and nearly black on the shaded ones. Cars could be seen glinting in the sun in the distance. The Douglass Firs whispered their soothing words and waved their branches in the breeze.

“They don’t have this in Oklahoma,” Josh said.

“West Texas doesn’t look like this either,” she said. “Aren’t these trees cool? They make a really nice sound. Look, there’s another one of those ground hog things.”

“I bet there are no marmots in Texas.”

“Ground hogs,” she said, as one of them whistled. “We have ground hogs. They aren’t anywhere near that big.”

In half an hour, they arrived at another outcropping that had a little stone building with openings for a door and windows. “I wonder what this was?” she asked.

“The sign says it was a lookout first, and later a shelter when the tram was built.”

On a stone bench, she sat, pulled the hood of her coat up, and tied it around her face. “Is there anywhere in New Mexico where there isn’t wind?”

“I don’t think so. I’ll bet there is wind in West Texas,” he said.

“You’ve got that right. Sometimes hot air,” she snickered.

“Yeah. We have so much wind we have wind farms,” he said.

“And Texas Tech in Lubbock has a wind energy engineering division.”

They sat for part of an hour taking in the scenery. He was holding her hand, fingers interlaced, inside the pocket of her coat. Except for the breeze in the trees, it was quiet, something they rarely got to enjoy. She launched a rock over the edge, and watched it bounce, in apparent slow motion, on its way to a new resting place. A bird landed in front of her, looked her square in the eye, and then flitted away.

“How peaceful this is,” she said. “But I’m sure glad you had us bring our coats. I would not have guessed at how much colder it would be up here.”

“The air is fresh and clean, isn’t it?” he said. “I’m really glad we did this.”

Another trail took them back to the tram station, giving them a view of the ski area and the eastern slope of Sandia Peak. Skiers were enjoying the sunshine. A chipmunk chattered at them on the way to the giftshop. Inside, they looked at books, pottery, and Faith bought a stocking cap.

As she was checking out, the tram appeared over the ridge on its way up. They made their way to the loading platform and were ushered onto the last seats, facing uphill. In the warmth of the tram, she put her hood down, pushed her hair behind her ears, and was looking around at all the scenery, but Josh could hardly take his eyes off her. As their trip started down, the sun shown in Faith’s face, and Josh was stricken by the dark brown of her eyes, her freckles, and the sparkles of light from her hair. He wasn’t sure which was the better scenery. New Mexico was beautiful, all right, but…

One of the visitors saw a wolf and was pointing, but Josh couldn’t see it. The change in temperature impressed them as the tram rumbled and clattered into its landing. Holding tight to her, they exited, descended the stairs, and headed for the parking lot. By this time, it was the middle of the afternoon.

“I’m starving,” she said.

They found an ancient diner several miles from the tram station and decided to give it a try. Old fashioned hand pressed burgers with cheese in buns with hand cut potato fries adorned a tiny table. They fed each other fries, made funny faces out of pickles, and shared a hand-dipped chocolate shake.

It was almost dark when they finally arrived home. “That was the most fun day I have ever had in Albuquerque,” she said. “Thanks for taking me. Thanks for finding the ad on TV.”

“I have never done anything like that. We will have to do it again.”

“I hope we do. Maybe we can hike all the way back down. It sounds like fun, but it would have to be summer.”

“We can do other things in New Mexico, too,” he said. “There are lots of things to do. Our problem is we don’t have much time off, and some of our time off has laundry, groceries, and sleeping in it.”

“We’ll get to some of it even if we have to use some vacation time.”

“I love you.”

“I love you.”

It had been a heavy Friday for the first-year residents. Changed into street clothes, Josh made a quick stop at the charting station, having thought of something he had forgotten to order on one of the patients. He entered the minor detail in the computer and logged off. Ann plunked in the seat beside him.

“Thank God it’s Friday,” she said.

“I agree with that,” Josh agreed.

“But you’re on call tomorrow. So, Friday doesn’t mean that much to you.”

“It’s the end of the week. There’re never office hours on Saturday, so the workday isn’t quite as frantic, and then there’s Sunday to recover. Tonight, home is just waiting for me to crash and burn, more of a mind thing.” He wanted to change the subject. “Can I ask you a question?”