I arrived in Albuquerque Monday night, meeting the rest of the crew (who were driving down from Vegas). In classic roadtrip style, we somehow managed to forget about the change in time zones, which left me waiting in the hotel lobby for an hour and a half to greet the crew… They didn’t arrive til 11:30 PM. I quickly passed out at a table in the lobby, and was anxiously awakened by a couple crew members rushing in to say that not only have the finally arrived, but Joe is having an asthma attack and collapsed in the RV. Fun never stops with this crew!
We managed to get Joe conscious and somewhat rehabilitated, and find the source of his irritation– a leak in the propane tank of the RV. Finally after a the added chaos of checking 20 people into their rooms and parking and unloading three mini-vans, a big rental truck, and an RV, we dragged ourselves over to what is apparently the only establishment in Santa Fe open after midnight on a weekday (the Atomic Cafe) for dinner.
The next couple days were “off,” i.e. no shooting. But, as anyone who’s ever worked in production knows, you don’t really ever get a day off, and indeed I spent most of mine in the hotel lobby making good use of the free WiFi. That night we ended up at a local bar for dinner and well… Let’s just say there’s a couple bars in Santa Fe that may be ordering another couple shipments of tequila this week…
Thursday was our first day of shooting out of Santa Fe, and we kicked it off by going whitewater rafting on the Rio Grande. I somehow got lucky enough to end up in a boat (rather than facilitating from onshore), which was a lot of fun. The cast seemed to have a great time too, and after we passed all the rapids got to experience a capsize drill and all go swimming.
Yesterday we headed up to Los Alamos to play Ultimate Frisbee with a team introduced to us by an atomic physicist based at the lab there. It was a gorgeous day and we all had a great time hanging out on the field, playing some ultimate, and talking a lot about the state of the world (that happens a lot, not surprisingly). We also got some great Lebanese food from a local cafe, which was a very welcome change up from roadside stops and burritos. Not that I don’t love burritos…
Today we left Santa Fe, and headed three hours up the road to Gallup, where I now sit in the El Rancho Hotel while (almost) everyone else travels out to the Navajo Nation reservation. I’m sure its going great, apparently there is some sheep shearing going on… Always a good time…
