Saturday, January 31, 2009
Keystone Mobile Home Park, Carlsbad, NM: Dec 5-Jan 9
As the name implies, the park caters mainly to mobile homes, but does accept a few RVs, usually for longer than the month that we stayed -- actually one month plus one week, even though we were only charged for a month (such is small town USA). The park's location turned out pretty ideal for our stay, since we were spending much of our time playing bridge or line dancing, and the Senior Center where these were held was only a short drive away. Not surprisingly, we discovered a few bridge players & line dancers live here permanently.
We planned our arrival to coincide with the STaC (Sectional Tournament at Club) bridge games, a week-long nationwide event where the same hands are played at all participating clubs. It's a good chance to see how you "stack" up (har har) against the entire ACBL. STaC week in Carlsbad culminates with their Christmas Party, held at the local Best Western. First we all play bridge, then margaritas are served (the losers always suggest that next year the order be reversed!), then dinner & socializing. The mood this year was dampened a bit by the non-appearance of Judy Hanttula, who was called away because her mother, Mary Thomas, had taken a turn for the worse in her battle with liver cancer. Unfortunately, Mary passed away the next day. When we first played at Carlsbad, Judy & Mary greeted us like long-lost friends and were instrumental in our joining the ACBL and the Carlsbad club. We loved playing bridge with them & loved talking with them before & after the games. Mary will be missed by the entire club. Doug thought the memorial service was the most uplifting he had ever attended (Willie was unable to attend due to a doctor's appt -- the only time she could fit in during our entire stay, doctors being pretty scarce here).We were pleased to learn that the line dancers were having a Christmas Party, where line dancers from around the state (& Texas) are invited to attend. Every year the instructor spends I-don't-know-how-many hours setting the latest dances to holiday music, which we then practice all of December & perform at the party. There are actually two senior centers in Carlsbad, each with its own line dancing. North is where we play bridge and do most of our line dancing. South caters to the less-affluent & Hispanics, definitely the poor cousin. We enjoy the line dancing at South at least as much as at North, but due to conflicts can only attend once/week. South attended the Christmas Party, but also decided to have their own party, finally agreed upon on Dec 30 (sort of a New Year's Eve Eve Party). It was at a local watering-hole with a DJ who played CDs from class. There was lots of beer, cheap happy hour food & everyone had a great time.
We got to participate in another Carlsbad bridge tradition -- the New Year's Eve party, which is a potluck followed by bridge. Usually when you play duplicate bridge, you keep the same partner for the entire game. Not here. Someone figured out a rotation where each round you have a new hand & a new partner. It was enjoyable, although I wouldn't have minded playing more than one hand with some partners (and fewer than one hand with others!). Neither of us did well enough to get any master points, at least not until Willie found a few scoring errors. Allow me to digress for a minute to explain that there are two annual master point "races" (who has earned the most master-points) within the ACBL in various categories, and that we had led both races in our category for our unit (Carlsbad) all year. Since we always play with each other as partners, we were always co-leaders. Well, when Willie discovered the errors, it bumped her score up a little, but due to the vagaries of duplicate scoring, it actually bumped Doug up even more, enough that he earned a whopping 0.08 master point, which, much to Willie's chagrin, put him alone in first place in both races.
We found time to attend 3 Christmas concerts. The first was a concert by Santa Fe Opera Apprentices. We were surprised when a trio of singers with piano accompaniment appeared -- for some reason we were expecting a chorus. The singers were quite good (of course) and the selections, a mix of obscure & traditional, made for a quite pleasant evening. Next was the Carlsbad Choirs concert. The choirs are comprised of "good" and "very good" high-school students who were both excellent. The soloists did not shine, due to poor sound equipment. There is only one major auditorium for students in Carlsbad, so they were not able to practice in that venue. There was a "guest appearance" by the Riverside Elementary Third Graders, led by a remarkably talented woman (who turned out to be the daughter of fellow bridge players). Usually children's choirs are mainly "cutesy" with little talent and even less discipline. This was not the case here. She kept these kids in perfect order, and they performed a delightful musical skit called "How the Penguins Saved Christmas" with the cutest costumes you could imagine. They were certainly the highlight of the concert. The third concert was a "Dessert Concert" at the First United Methodist Church. This was an interesting experiment with serving dessert while various people sang and then adjourning to the sanctuary while various choirs performed. Here there were abundant children of the "cutesy" variety, lots of chaos and a bit of good singing. It was quite festive!
Since it was "only" 280 miles to Albuquerque, we decided to spend Christmas with Gayle, Bob & Paula. Gayle made reservations for us in one of the guest rooms at La Vida Llena, and Bob & Paula committed to feeding us all dinner for the two nights of our visit. We decided to rent a car for the trip to save on gas and wear-and-tear on the truck. A friend from our bridge club (who lives right behind us) agreed to take care of the cats. It was hard to leave the cats, as we are so unused to being without them, but we all survived the separation!
Albuquerque is delightful to visit on Christmas Eve. There is a Christmas Eve tradition to light luminarias (small candles placed in brown paper bags) throughout the town, but especially in certain neighborhoods, one of which was Bob & Paula's (Nob Hill). You either walk or drive to view them, but walking is definitely preferable. Words cannot express how exquisitely lovely it is to walk through a neighborhood where all the streets, sidewalks, driveways, and architectural features of the houses are lined with softly glowing luminarias. The "real" candles are so much more attractive than the currently popular electric luminarias.
Bob & Paula created marvelous meals for Christmas Eve & Christmas, and we came away stuffed both times. We really enjoyed the visit, despite having to rush away Friday morning before a storm hit (when we got back to Carlsbad the temp was 70 but it was snowing in ABQ).
No trip to Carlsbad is complete without a visit to Carlsbad Cavern NP. For our New Year's Day & 17th Wedding Anniversary celebration, we decided to eat out at a Chinese buffet and visit the Caverns. The Chinese food was filling and adequate. We'll try another more highly rated buffet next time. The Caverns were, as usual, quite lovely, although there were a lot more people than we were expecting. What happened to all the people who used to stay home and watch football on New Year's Day? We enjoy visiting Carlsbad because you can wander the main route on your own and you don't have to be led by a tour guide (and we get in free with Willie's Golden Age Pass). We lingered until the last elevator was leaving.Harvey Hicks, one of the founders of our bridge club, has spent many years roaming the countryside around Carlsbad, and in so doing has found numerous ancient sites on both public & private lands. He offered to take us to a nearby pithouse village site & we quickly accepted. It was very interesting to see and to hear about the history of this land. Harvey has an extensive collection of points, dating back to the earliest hunter-gatherers. More outings are promised for future visits.
All in all, we thoroughly enjoyed our stay in Carlsbad and hope to stay longer next year. It still has a few drawbacks (lack of decent shopping and doctors), but the people more than make up for that.# posted by Doug and Willie @ 2:19 PM 
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