Within the span of one day of driving we went from the heat of El Paso to the cool temperatures of Albuquerque, New Mexico. On this road trip we've seen a large spectrum of weather types, so why does a bout of cold temperatures matter? Well Deb B (the female half of the Killer B’s) surprised her hubbie on his birthday with a trip to New Mexico to join us on our road trip for a couple of weeks. So again, why are the cooler temps a potential problem? First of all we think that the Killer B’s are expecting to escape a Canadian winter for at least a short period of time- but the temperatures in Toronto have actually been higher than those of Albuquerque so far this year. And secondly, since Dave B is now officially recognized by the Government of Canada as a senior citizen, we are little concerned that his aging circulatory system may no longer be able to handle those frigid winds that always seem to find their way up your pant legs.

On the plus side, we are looking forward to using his yellowing birth certificate to pick up discounts that are still out of reach for us (unfortunately we are in fact eligible for Denny’s senior pricing… but that comes with senior-sized portions).

We had to get to Albuquerque a day early in order to give Billy Thunder a sponge bath and find a storage locker so we could make room for the Killer B’s. After 4 years of traveling with just our backpacks, we had taken advantage of the space offered by our new SUV in order to stuff it with everything we thought we might need on our road trip (and, of course, it’s turned out that we haven’t needed any of it).

On pick-up day we hadn’t factored in the privileges our newly minted senior citizen garners when traveling, and since he was wheeled off the plane first we were a bit late in picking them up (although we were there in full stars and stripes regalia). Apologies offered and accepted, we raced up to Santa Fe in order to properly kick off the 65 Years Young Birthday Tour. Santa Fe is well known for a number of higher end art galleries and a historic downtown area, but less well known is that Santa Fe is also home to the worlds first Frito Pie and what better way to kick off this celebratory tour than with a famous pie (it turns out that Frito 'Pie’ is less pie and more an open bag of Frito Chips with a spicy bean chili and cheese concoction layered in).  

Given my sensitive nature, I successfully convinced DH that we needed to start the Birthday Tour with a heart-friendly event and ease into some of the more strenuous activities. And it doesn’t get much easier than a star gazing night- New Mexico has a reputation for clear, dark nights with very little urban light pollution but unfortunately we ended up with an overcast sky and a big bright full moon. We did find one star that we were able to claim for the birthday boy but since it was one of the few stars we were able to see (Sirius), it’s also a popular star so we had to honour him with a hyphenated name: Sirius Dave. During your next clear night you should try and seek it out- a little frayed around the edges, light-years old, but still sparkling … and the star has been around for a while as well.