Leaving LA

1. Our Snappy Scion, 2. Santa Fe Welcome, 3. the colors of Santa Fe, 4. Santa Fe

The Scion is a scrubbed up and vacuumed. "Teacher Car" is no more. We are leaving the glitz and glamour that is our life (cough) and heading out on our first real road trip!

Both Cliff and I have been on cross country road trips in the past, but neither of one of us has been to Santa Fe. Cliff has a good friend from his writers group who lives there. Lynn was a costume designer, writer, dancer and has had many, many Hollywood adventures. At 75 she is still going strong as an artist both in Santa Fe and also in Italy.

Over the years, I have heard stories about the dynamic Lynn and I was (am) eager to meet her. We emailed her and it turned out that while she would be globe trotting for most of March and April , she would be home at the exact time we planned to visit.

Time passed from our initial emails and we didn't hear more from Lynn. "No worries," we thought, she is out gallivanting. Then, we happened to mention to a mutual friend that we planned to visit Lynn during our upcoming trip to Sana Fe.

"You haven't heard?!"

Turns out Lynne was in a horrific car accident while driving to LA and is now in a rehab hospital in Albuquerque. She suffered a broken neck and multiple broken bones and is essentially bedridden! (Still, miraculously alive.) A few phone calls and we learned that:

A. Subaru makes a good car with tons of air bags. Her car flipped head over tail and rolled. They had to use the Jaws Of Life, but she survived.

B. When Lynn was still groggy from the meds she would forget what had happened. When told about her car accident multiple times, her response was always, "No, F*&* way!" Clearly, she has maintained a sense of humor.

We feel really fortunate to have learned of the accident so that we can go visit her at the hospital. And, now with no obligations in Santa Fe we plan to channel what African Kelli and Finny call the "Santa Fe Effect." After reading both of their posts on Santa Fe, we decided to throw caution to the wind and just wing it.

Be back in a week!