Trip conclusion and update, with pictures!
Hooray, I'm back.

I got some good pictures while I was away, but I was dumb and forgot my phone-to-computer cable, so I wasn't able to get them off the phone or anything until just now. So, I've put together a little pictoral version of my trip for you guys.

First, though, here's my grandfather's obituary as it appeared in his local paper. Most of it seems well in order, though I personally am a bit thrown off by the relative level to which they appear to have downplayed the fact that he died. "He passed away in his home after a short illness" almost sounds like an afterthought--"oh, it appears that I'm 87 and I have a bit of a bug; I guess that's it for me then." He died after nearly two weeks of stressful and agonizing near-round-the-clock care from my parents and uncles, from fluid-buildup-related complications caused by his terminal cancer. "A short illness" is what I have when I'm coughing a bit and don't quite feel up to weaving for a couple of days.

But what do I know about obituaries? Maybe the fact that it's an obituary means the part that he died is a bit redundant anyway and they're just trying not to be excessively grim about the details. Whatever. Moving on.



The hyena closes in.



Pictures of sunsets always turn out way darker than the real thing--it was just starting to get slightly dark when I took this picture, which appears to be pitch black but for the fact that the sky is on fire. Either way, it's still a surprisingly pretty nature shot for my crappy camera phone and lack of photography skills. I edited the bigger version into my new desktop wallpaper.



Sure, they look cute, but the truth is that they are why we can't have nice things.



See? I feed them and I keep them company every day for nearly a week, and this is how they repay me. :(



Also, the idiots managed to escape through this fence. No clever plan, just sheer determination--they simply muscled the door open enough to squeeze through. Fortunately, all were recovered. Here we see a cinder block pressed against the outside of the gate to hopefully keep them from doing that again.



The feral prairie cow's natural enemy is the giant stuffed ladybug. Everyone knows this.



While it's a well-known fact that kittens are cute and adorable while full-grown cats are mean, spiteful, jaded, bitter assholes, the question remains: why? My theory is that cat hatred is simply a matter of practice. Kittens are new, and thus obviously not very good at it yet. Old man Boris here has had nearly two decades to hone and perfect his world-hating. His current favored method of hunting for food involves turning potential prey to stone with his gaze and then drinking its soul through his black, abyssal eyes.

Bonus: if you transform this picture to grayscale, it would make an awesome death metal album cover.



Finally, my final day there turned out to be really nice, weather-wise, so I snapped this picture on the top of the driveway on my way out just because New Mexico is pretty.