Pictures:
Storm: http://picasaweb.google.com/113708845568647784424/StormInSocorro#
Socorro: http://picasaweb.google.com/113708845568647784424/MemorialDayWeekendInSocorro#
As I said on Monday, I did indeed go biking on Tuesday. It wasn’t that long of a bike ride, as it was being annoyingly difficult to go up hills. I realized later (today, actually) that I can change the gear on my bike. I didn’t notice this because the mechanism was fairly tight and difficult to move. So, yeah. It should make biking easier from here on out though!
I went running on Wednesday. It was nice out, at least at 7.30 in the morning, which I’m pretty sure is the only time I’m going to be able to run this summer. That being said, I did see someone out running in the middle of the day today. Crazy people. Also on Wednesday we had a guy talking at the AOC about gravitational waves. It involved a free lunch, which was nice, although now I’m ineligible to be stalked by Domino’s for not trying their new pizza. Verdict: still Domino’s. Later that night I walked over to Burger King. It was about a twenty minute walk each way, however, so I don’t feel too bad about it.
While I was running, I saw a cow in the brush next to the golf course. Which was kind of weird because, well, it’s a cow. On a golf course. Kinda random, you know? Then I realized there was a guy next to the cow. Then I noticed the cow was on a leash and was actually a Great Dane. Holy crap it was big. And it had patches of black and white fur. So it looked like a calf. It looked like this: http://www.pupsforsale.net/great_dane_02_puppies_for_sale.jpg. But larger, and less sickly looking. Anyway, on my walk back from Burger King I saw it A SECOND TIME!
Wednesday it was supposed to be bad outside, with a thunderstorm and hail, but none of it materialized. Thursday, however, we got a pretty big storm after work. I was trying to bike home to beat it, but it came at about seven, so I could have biked at a slower pace and been fine. Oh well. The storm was pretty nice. Lots of lightning, not too much rain. I r an outside and took some pictures of the clouds and such, then went back in when it started picking back up. However, right before sunset, I looked outside and saw this awesome cloud formation to the south, so I grabbed my camera again to take pictures. I ran to the hill behind the guesthouse, where I saw a big rainbow to the east and a phenomenal sunset to the west. I started to take a picture when I realized I had left my memory card in my computer. So, I sprinted inside, grabbed the card, and sprinted out the guesthouse to a view that would give me a slightly better angle on the sunset. I only got one shot of the rainbow before the sun had set too low, but I got some good shots of the sunset. Here’s the best (but they’re all on the Picasa link I posted at the start):
As I said, it was a really awesome sunset. Very red. It was still raining a little bit at that time too, so, after I got the pictures I wanted, I scampered back inside.
Friday was boring until after work, when the other student already here and I went to a Chinese buffet for dinner. That’s right; I’m at the confluence of Latin American, American, and Native American cultures, in the waning days of spring, and I went to a Chinese buffet. Playing Christmas music. The food wasn’t actually that bad, and it was actually more or less cheap. Afterwards we hit up the grocery store, where I actually got some things I could refrigerate and cook.
This morning, I decided to go to all the sights I had yet to see. First stop: The Mineralogical museum. It was….meh. They had a really good collection of rocks, minerals, meteorites, and fossils, but their presentation was lackluster. They had all the rocks on little display stands, with their name and composition, but that was it. There wasn’t any guide to what you were seeing, no reasons why they form the way they do (they did have an explanation on the chirality of quartz, but only pictures showing how it was formed, not an explanation to why it was that way), and no explanations of what colors or structures mean. You know, things that would make geology exciting. Instead, it was a taxonomist’s dream. They had a room on fluorescent minerals, but it appeared to be broken. It had three black lights, but one was faintly flickering, while the other two turned on at random. Furthermore, you couldn’t read the labels because the actual light in the small subsection was off. The fossil room, which had some potential, was messy and cluttered, as if it was supposed to be a storage room. All in all, the museum has a lot of potential, but it’s largely untapped at the moment. Perhaps I will visit later in the summer to see if things have improved.
After visiting that, I decided to walk back to the guesthouse to get some lunch. On my way, I saw some stairs leading up the Fidel Center. They took me to what was effectively the roof of the second floor, and offered a pretty good view of the surrounding area. I took some pictures, which I stitched into a panorama (visible in the Picasa album). Most of it is tree tops, but you can see the Magdalena Mountains pretty well in it. After that, I walked back to the guesthouse and made some grilled cheese. I am of the opinion that grilled cheese is one of the best foods on the planet, by the way.
After lunch, I grabbed my cowboy hat and ventured to the plaza of Socorro. It’s got a gazebo, a roundabout (traffic circle, if you will), and some heavy gun to the south. That’s about it.I lingered there on the phone for a bit before heading east across California. There, I saw a Christmas store that sold Jelly Bellies. I was excited, until I found out that they were closing up for good today. That’s cold, Socorro. I wandered around the block until I saw an amputee walking into a discount liquor store. After that, I decided to head to the San Miguel Mission, a 19th century church. Despite looking it up online before going, and seeing that there was nothing until a mass at 5, there seemed to be something going on inside, involving a priest fully dressed for mass. So I closed the door and instead walked around the outside of the building. I decided to stick it out, so I wandered over to a used video store/drive-through cigarette store to pass some time. It was depressing, with dust covering half of the videos and everything generally in a state of neglect. I wandered out and walked over to the courtyard in front of the Mission. After the three o’clock bells chimed and no one left (actually, someone wearing a suit went whistling IN), and having felt some rain, I decided to beat a hasty retreat back to the guesthouse. The rain stopped before I got back, but I saw some people playing music on the porch of the Fidel (student) center, so I stopped to listen. They were pretty good, but I really needed to drink water, so I walked back. After resting for about twenty minutes, I walked back to see the band, but they were disbanding at that point. Hopefully, they play every Saturday, because I’d like to listen to them again. I have a video of them I might post as well at some point.
Finally, I decided to clean out the communal fridge in the guesthouse, something the past year of dorm life has given me good experience with. There was a lot of expired and rotting crap, but there was also chicken and taters marked as ‘free,’ so I had dinner tonight at someone else’s expense. Huzzah to that. The wages of cleaning is free food, I suppose. Other than that, not much has been going on. I found out Star Trek VII: Generations is on Hulu. That’s always fun. It’s also the source of this post’s title. No idea what I’ll be doing for the rest of the weekend, but I did notice the town’s only theater has re-opened, so I might watch Date Night to give me something to do. Also, the pool is open (as of today), so I might go for a swim. Who knows which of these limitless possibilities I will choose!
