My pictures don’t do the moonlight justice, but nice soft snow in the gentle light makes for a serene ride down. We don’t want it to end.

At the bottom we’re a little delirious. Another couple skis up to us while we try in vain to take a self portrait, and I don’t even notice that one of them is missing an arm. Well, not really, but I’ll realize my mistake later. Tonight we retreat happily to our home in the parking lot and climb in bed.

One of our curiosities is what route the train takes when departs from the I-25 corridor. We experience a route that snuggles up to the Gallisteo River, and sneaks through some reservation pueblos. The reservations don’t look unusual to me, but an announcement prohibits photography on those undefined stretches, and some fellow passengers tell us they were told “not to look”. I will miss some of New Mexico’s eccentricities. The GPS tracker reveals the details of the route:

When we arrive we’re hungry, and wandering around downtown Albuquerque we’re surprised to find nearly everything closed. We have to laugh when we end up at the Flying Star Cafe, which has a new location at the Railyard in Santa Fe! It doesn’t matter, this has a totally different feel, and we can walk to the Rio Grande afterward. We improvise a nice loop, our only failure being to find some espresso in time to make our return train.

Friends can peruse Ann’s photos.

The wake up call for me here is that Aron was usually better about leaving a trip itinerary with his roommates for every outing he did. As a couple, this is difficult for us, and will get harder when we travel. Who do we burden with the responsibility of a potential rescue? We ask our less outdoorish acquaintances to do this for us sometimes, but we’re not too comfortable with that, and it’s not always even an option. SPOT products target this market, but for some reason that system seems to me to add too much cost and complexity to something that should be simple. But maybe I need to give that up until I have a better system.

http://code.google.com/feeds/p/wordpress-geo-mashup/downloads/basic

The change log will be tracked by version in the Milestone field on the issues page:

http://code.google.com/p/wordpress-geo-mashup/issues/list?can=2&q=milestone=1.2.9

Happy upgrading!

I guess other people do this regularly, but it seems risky to me! I manage a couple of miles, and never lose color or movement in my toes, but they definitely go totally numb. I give them frequent hand warmings to encourage circulation, and finally use my better judgment and put on my shoes. It was a fun but slightly scary experiment! I think I’ll stick to mostly dry ground for now.

Happy new year to everyone and their feet, however shod they are!

Working: Thanks to Ann, I’ve spent the entire year developing my ability to make a living doing freelance work procured largely via my open source software. It seems to be working! This has inspired us to make exciting plans for 2010.

Eating: This was my first year as a vegan! The diet works for me and makes me feel great. I thought it would be terribly hard to give up half and half in my coffee, and cheese on everything, but I was surprised. The hard part is that I’ve yet again rejected mainstream values, further isolating me and adding one more difficulty for my already weak social skills to overcome. I hate casting myself as a morally superior being, yet I can’t picture giving up the diet for this reason. So mostly I try to be an Onobtrusive Vegan.

There was a nice helping of gravy on the year – some climbing, and really good visits with friends and family. The end of my sixth year of marriage, however, brought challenges that some of our married friends warned would come in otherwise unpredictable forms. It proved to be a time to question our marriage, answer those questions together, and come out to our great relief with a renewed appreciation of our partnership. Now I’m glad for the struggle because I feel closer than ever to Mrs. Cyberhobo.

Last but not least, there were numbers! Here are some of the things I kept track of by week:

Hours Tracked (by GPS, starting in June): 400.9

Outdoor Nights: 22|39

Miles on Foot: 1148.81

Elevation Gain on Foot (ft): 195116

Rock Climbing Elevation Gain (ft): 4250

Miles by Bike: 262.08

Bike Elevation Gain (ft): 5695

Books Read: 13

Movies Watched: 33