Silver City

This is my second time dropping down the valley to Silver City to get Internet, drink a soy latte, get a new book and get my fix of socializing! While eating my yogurt in front of the food co-op, Erika, an art student, approached me and asked me if I was a Continental Divide hiker. Upon my inquiring about nearby camping possibility, she invited me to stay at her house, as she had apparently previously done with other CDT hikers. My luck! She invited me to have dinner at a her friend Maria's house, a lovely young pregnant woman currently living near Oaxaca (Mexico) where her husband is finishing his PhD thesis on sustainable indigenous agriculture. Her own parents also live there and are part of a Catholic NGO helping local farmers preserve their ancestral agricultural tradition. The conversations were quite inspiring... I slept on the couch with Knox the dog who was snoring. I had dreams of being with a young and handsome Bill Clinton and then of being in a medieval city, in charge of coordinating the rules for screening incoming goods for quality. In the dream, a powerful storm was brewing and I witnessed a beautiful goddess-like figure reaching for the skies and weaving the clouds with her hands to modify the course of the storm. Fearing the destruction of the city by the storm, I fell to the ground and wept...and woke up. The skies in the early morning looked just like in the dreams, dark, low and menacing. But thanks to the goddess of the dream, it turned out to be a lovely and toasty day.
I mailed a deer antler I found in the woods, a bundle of bark from a lighting-struck elm tree (believed to hold power by the Apaches) and a handful of Juniper berries to my nephew Karim in Seattle. I had a danish pastriy, a kale omelet and coffee for breakfast, and fettucine Alfredo with green chile for lunch with more coffee and pastries. I browsed the bookstores all afternoon. It's lovely to be in this little town and the University library has free and fast Internet. Life is good!