Kim Hudson

White Sands National Monument

Published on August 22, 2014

Several years ago, I discovered White Sands National Monument, thanks to Instagram. I immediately added it to my list of places to visit and kept hoping that some job would take us in the vicinity of southern New Mexico. It took slightly longer than I’d hoped to get there, but sometimes waiting makes it all the sweeter, doesn’t it?

I’ve been to a handful of dunes now and was expecting these to be challenging to walk on. Not only was it the height of summer, but it was also 100 degrees outside — which would make sand unbearable to touch. However, these dunes are not made of sand, but gypsum crystals! It was cool to the touch and compacted differently than sand does. It was truly beautiful, like walking on mounds of sugar or a life-size sand garden – very zen!

I could’ve spent hours walking around. My children, however, wanted to slide down the hills. We didn’t have room to bring sleds on this road trip, but luckily the park office sells them new/used plus allows returns for 1/3 the price. It was well worth it! (TIP: some of the hotels in Alamogordo have some to borrow as well.)

The park service also offers a free sunset walking tour, which I’d planned to take. Unfortunately, just as it was about to begin, a huge tour bus showed up. What started as a handful of people turned into a gigantic group! We weren’t in the mood for that, so we decided to drive through the park and walk around alone. I would’ve enjoyed learning about the history and geology of the area, but will have to get that on our next visit. Either way, it was pretty spectacular exploring on our own and the children had a blast.

White Sands is an otherworldly location. It felt completely magical from the moment we arrived and swore we were looking at snow; but especially as the sun set and the hills turned from bright white to gold. We drove away with an orange sun on our tail, pockets full of sandy white crystals and a plan to return in the not too distant future.

Modern Mixtape Vol. 15: Don’t touch the ground

Published on April 11, 2014

Blog/Music

I realize it’s not fair after this much radio silence to pop in with only a mix of music, but it’s all I’ve got right now. Hopefully I will be able to come back to this space soon. I miss it (and you)! Until then, here are some great tracks for Spring 2014. There’s so much good music that has come out recently. I plan on rocking it on our Spring Break road trip. Enjoy! Listen on [8Tracks] Download [HERE]

Track Listing

Warpaint Love is to Die
Wildcat! Wildcat! Mr. Quiche
Gardens & Villa Domino
Broken Bells After the Disco
Mr. Little Jeans Good Mistake
Metronomy I’m Aquarius
Timber Timbre The New Tomorrow
Pixies Silver Snail
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah Coming Down
Hospitality I Miss Your Bones
Mikal Cronin Soul in Motion
Beck Say Goodbye
Mansionair Hold Me Down
London Grammar Metal & Dust
Future Islands Seasons (Waiting on You)
Damien Jurado Silver Timothy

Puerto Rico: The Gallery Inn

Published on July 20, 2013

Photography/Travel/Travel Photography

Perhaps it was the unmarked entrance or the greeting of exotic parrots and masses of trailing plants.
Whatever it was, we knew from the moment we walked in that this was no ordinary hotel.

Online reviews touted varying opinions such as:
“It’s like walking into a Fellini movie.” “Charming & Romantic.” “Spooky!” “Not for everyone.” “You get it or your don’t.”
It sounded like the perfect place for us to spend our 11th Anniversary and final days in Puerto Rico.

The children took off within seconds of arriving, following a labyrinth of stairs and hallways to secret rooms and passageways.

Our generously sized family room, the ‘Balcon’, overlooked a courtyard and the sea. It was quite fun to stay somewhere so different from the usual minimalist or modern accommodations I tend to book.

Every ounce of space is filled with something; a piece of art, greenery, color, anything to grab your attention for half a second before your eye is lead to the next thing.

This sprawling 300 year old hotel is owned by American artist, Jan D’Esopo and her Puerto Rican husband, Manuco. Along with creating and maintaining this incredible, museum-like space, she also invites varying “artists in residence” to stay and work at the hotel. We enjoyed chatting with the current artist and painter, Bart Lindstrom, and his girlfriend, Kathy.

When you’re not busy wandering the streets of Old San Juan, there are plenty of activities to do around the property;
from swimming in the unusual sculptural pool…

Lounging poolside in an old world daybed…

To getting a massage in an historic kitchen…

Or playing a song on a vintage Steinway in the Venetian-style music room. (Chamber music concerts are performed throughout the year by local musicians.)

Even better, hop on a golf cart with Jan, the artist in residence, the server and possibly a parrot or two and be whisked away to the beach house for Happy Hour. It’s the perfect place to watch the sun set and to chat with Jan (who is fascinating) or the artists and other guests. A parrot might even pluck out a song for you on the guitar!

GalleryInnBeachHouse3 When you return from the beach, head straight to the patio overlooking the pool (if weather permits) or into the ornate dining room where a delicious meal will be prepared and served to you. You’ll likely be intoxicated by the breezes of jasmine while an unexpected classical guitarist serenades you as you dine.

As night falls, you may lie in bed replaying the magical day while listening to the calls of the Coqui Coqui frogs outside the open windows.
Perhaps it was all a surreal dream.

If you find yourself wide awake, unable to sleep, climb up to the rooftop deck to catch the sunrise.

And if you’re lucky, the artists will already be there studying the first light of day and how it hits the clouds. Maybe you’ll be graced by an early morning shower and instead of washing away the mystique in the early morning light, it somehow only adds to it. This place will be forever embedded in your soul.

The Gallery Inn
204-206 Norzagaray,
Old San Juan, Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico: East Side Story

Published on June 11, 2013

Photography/Travel/Travel Photography

On any given day, I could dole out a list of places I’d like to visit and prior to last month, Puerto Rico wasn’t on it. It’s not that I had anything against the island — I simply knew very little about it. The oddball connotations I had with Puerto Rico were: West Side Story(!?), birthplace to J. Lo and Ricky Martin, and cruise ship port. Luckily, my travel “To Go” list is easily expandable, as is my willingness to learn! When my husband booked a job there in May, I figured it was the perfect opportunity to discover more about this United States territory.

Founded by Christopher Columbus in 1493, Puerto Rico is comprised of Spanish, African and indigenous Taino cultural influences with a heavy dose of American colonization. It’s an easy destination for US travelers as there’s no need for a passport, most everyone speaks English, the dollar is accepted, cell phones work as they do back home and there’s a Walgreens (or Walmart, McDonalds, KFC, CVS, etc.) every so many miles. Luckily, for all of the interspersed American-isms, there are plenty of areas that still feel foreign. And on a positive note, it was a comfort that driving there was more like The States than say Mexico or India!

Generally when we accompany my husband on his photo shoots, we don’t have the luxury of picking our own hotels. While most of his jobs are usually at nice resorts, they aren’t always the character-driven places that I would have painstakingly chosen. Luckily, our accommodation at the historic El Conquistador Hotel was pretty good. For what it lacked in decent dining and perhaps dated surroundings, it completely made up for itself with its private Palomino Island. A short, 8 minute ferry ride whisks guests away to one of the prettiest stretches of beach I’d seen in a long time. (Sidenote: Palomino and the tiny, neighboring Palominito Island (seen in the distance above + below) made appearances in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies.)

While my daughter snorkeled and I floated my 7 months pregnant body through heaven, my son was enthralled with wrangling iguanas, lizards, geckos, snails, mollusks and hermit crabs. My sincere apologies to the various reptile families that were displaced and/or disrupted because of him.

When we weren’t lounging beachside (or at the hotel’s Coqui Waterpark), we tried to explore other parts of the island. Just outside of Fajardo, in the Luquillo Mountains, is the only national tropical rain forest, El Yunque. We spent several hours hiking through it one day. On a funny note, I’d read somewhere that Puerto Ricans “don’t really like to walk or get their shoes dirty”, so the whole park has a series of paved hiking trails. It wasn’t the most spectacular rainforest I’ve ever been to, but it was nice to be amidst the greenery and out of the sun for an afternoon.

As far as dining in Puerto Rico is concerned, there seemed to be three main options: very traditional Puerto Rican fare, American fast food chains and a handful of modern and trendy restaurants (mostly found in San Juan). I played it pretty safe as I wasn’t feeling too adventurous this late in my pregnancy. Sadly, it wasn’t until our last two days that we ate some really good food. If you find yourself in the Fajardo area, I’d highly recommend Pasion por el Fogon. The children and I had a fantastic meal there on our last night at the El Con. And for a little cultural integration, we stopped at the “Luquillo Kioskos” for some authentic street food on our way to Old San Juan. We had driven past them several times and I’m glad we took the time to visit. They’re a series of 60 dilapidated kiosks that serve food and drinks, as well as sell souvenirs and trinkets. They look a bit dodgy by day, but come dusk, they are packed with people and boast loud music you can hear from the road. I didn’t realize they butted up to a public beach, until I wandered out the backside of one of the kiosks and saw a massive string of cars, wave runners and beach-goers lined up all down the coast.

As I’ve said before, I have a tendency to visit a place once and then scratch it off my list as “DONE.” However, I don’t feel like I saw everything I wanted to in Puerto Rico. Some of this was due in part to being so pregnant. Here’s what we missed:

I would have liked to visit Bio Bay with it’s luminescent waters, but kayaking in the dark with two children and an enormous belly didn’t sound so appealing! We also tried to take the ferry to Culebra Island to visit Flamenco Beach, supposedly one of the most beautiful beaches in the world. Unfortunately, the public ferry system in PR was akin to a DMV in a Third World country. ¡Ay Caramba! I was also bummed we never got over to the west coast and more specifically, the city of Rincon, which is famous for it’s surf. And finally, I speak for all of us when I say, we must go back to the lovely city of Old San Juan. Our unforgettable stay there deserves a post of its own.

¡Hasta Luego!

Baby 3.0 – What have you done to my mother?

Published on April 17, 2013

Blog/Parenting/Pregnancy

It has been nearly 10 years since I was pregnant with my first baby and 8 with my last. Even though I don’t think any mother could ever forget the terrible morning sickness or the way it feels when a baby kicks from inside, time has a funny way of burying the little feelings and memories that go along with pregnancy. Somehow, 40 long weeks of counting down are obliterated once the baby arrives and you’re instantly thrust into a whole new line of concerns and changes. The counting of weeks (in the opposite direction) turn into months and before you know it, years have passed by in a blur. You’ll likely catch yourself wondering,

“What happened to my baby? How are you 9 years old already? You’re halfway to moving out of the house! Aaaaack…“

As this will be my last, I’m trying hard to relish and remember every little detail, good or bad. I want to savor the pregnancy and the early years because I know all too well how quickly it goes.

THREE IS THE MAGIC NUMBER: Besides the obvious discomforts that go hand in hand with growing something inside of you, I’ve found the hardest thing to deal with is fear. This has been amplified exponentially due to my “Advanced Maternal Age.” I should note that under normal circumstances, I keep most medical visits to a bare minimum. I try to sustain our health through diet and exercise, utilising medicine only when truly necessary. Ironically, my experiences with childbirth have been everything but natural. It was as though my first two would’ve been content to stay in utero for good. They were both huge babies that required c-sections and even then, they wouldn’t come out! At the end of the day, I just wanted them to be healthy and out of my body. My first OB/GYN had delivered something like 35,000 babies in his career, so I put my faith in his ability and expertise. Even though he was unusually laid back, he had an uncanny ability to make you feel like he had it all under control. He’d say things (in a strong southern drawl) like, “You never know what is gonna happen, honey. There’s no point in worrying about a thing.” Finding myself pregnant again at the ancient age of 38, has been such a different experience. I spent the first three months expecting to miscarry. It doesn’t help that “AMA” is scrawled like scarlet letters on every piece of medical paper with my name on it. As my doctor told me, our bodies are meant to have babies in our early twenties. Thanks for that, doc.

TESTS: At 10 weeks, I had a new screening called MaterniT21. It’s a non-invasive blood test that can tell with 99% accuracy if there’s a presence of Down’s Syndrome or one of the main Trisomy disorders (an alternative to an early CVS or Amniocentesis). It also allowed us to learn the gender extremely early. Following this test, I had a worrisome Nuchal Translucency ultrasound which prompted us to get genetic counseling and the subsequent 23andMe DNA tests. It wasn’t required, but I’ll admit, I was very curious to learn about my ancestry, disease risks and gene carrier status. It took about 6 weeks and I nearly had a stroke prior to opening the results for my breast cancer and Parkinson’s screen, but it was completely worth the $99 to learn as much as I did about my health. Since then, I’ve had some of the usual tests like the AFP and monthly ultrasounds with a perinatologist. Unfortunately, they discovered we have something called Marginal Cord Insertion, where the umbilical cord inserted onto the side of the placenta rather than the middle. The doctors said they would monitor it to make sure the baby was getting enough nutrients, blood, etc., as it can result in a smaller baby. In the words of my perinatologist, “In this case, it might be a blessing that you have such big babies!” Of course I went home and researched it online and it seems THE BABY MIGHT DIE. I quickly got off the internet and started eating more. Thankfully, he’s growing right on track. Lastly, we were instructed to have an Fetal Echocardiogram Ultrasound with the top pediatric cardiologist in town because there’s a family history of babies with holes in their hearts. Overboard? Probably, but at least we know his heart is healthy. Now that we’ve checked for just about every little thing that can go wrong, I’m hoping from here on out, it will be business as usual.

As for some of the other fun changes:

SKIN: I broke out terribly with my daughter, but it was not too bad this time. However, the first sign that I was pregnant was a gnarly, tell-tale spot on my chest and then some on my back. This hadn’t happened since my last pregnancy, so I immediately wondered if I was indeed expecting.

HAIR: My hair fell out like crazy for the first couple of months of pregnancy. I’d only remembered the stage where I didn’t lose hair, but this time around I was shedding faster than an Alaskan Malemute! Now I lose a total of 4 hairs a day and I swear it makes my face look even bigger. (lovely)

NAUSEA: I will never understand how some women feel nothing while others can be retching for months on end! Consistent with my other two pregnancies, it started rearing it’s ugly head around 6 1/2 weeks and didn’t go away until 20 weeks. It mostly began around noon and would dissipate in the middle of the night while I slept. This little one made me throw up the most though. For the worst two months, I was in bed at 5:30pm curled up in the fetal position trying hard not to dry heave while watching favorites like Downton Abbey, The Mindy Project, Girls, or New Girl on the iPad. When it finally went away, it was as though the heavens had opened!

CRAVINGS: For someone who gets so sick, I have an uncanny ability to eat like a total gannet when I’m pregnant. The irony is, the act of eating makes me feel temporarily better and then as soon as I’m done, I go right back to feeling like I’m going to throw up. I started to think maybe chewing was the answer, so I’ve tried to supplement with minty gum whenever possible. Unfortunately, gum doesn’t satiate a never-ending appetite! Ava and Max have been completely horrified by the change in my diet. I’m normally very strict about what we eat with very little dining out and mostly natural/healthy homemade food. But everything is off the table when I’m pregnant. Candy, fast food, eating in bed at 10:30pm — you name it, I’ve eaten it. Here’s how a random week looked during the early months… Monday: I need a Philly Cheesesteak. Tuesday: Time for my weekly In ‘N Out Double-Double. Wednesday: Must. Eat. Giant. Carne. Asada. Burrito. Thursday: Who wants Egg Salad for the 5th week in a row? Friday: Gyro Time! As it is, I’m hungry every couple of hours and have been supplementing with bowls of granola, tangy fruits like pineapple/kiwi/mango, Trader Joe’s chocolates (damn you, TJ’s!) and these most delicious scones. One final thing to note is, this is the first pregnancy where I’ve been able to drink coffee (a mostly decaf blend) the entire time.

WEIGHT GAIN: I gained 60lbs with both of my other kids and it looks like I’m headed there again. I’m already up 40lbs. UGH! Everything hurts. My thighs are touching. I feel like a whale flopping from side to side in bed at night. I can hardly pull myself to a seated position without assistance. My face is fat. Once again, fairness doesn’t play equally, as I’m simply not one of those pretty pregnant people. (According to my cleaning lady, “At least you aren’t as bad as Kim Kardashian!” Thanks, amiga!) All of this leads me to counting down the days until post-partum bliss. As soon as the baby comes out, it’s like a reset button has been pushed and I feel normal again. I managed to lose the weight twice before and I know I will do it again. I have to.

TOOTHBRUSH GAG: Throughout the morning sickness ordeal, I also have the lovely side effect of gagging when I brush my teeth. It’s not a polite, lady-like retch but more of a guttural, my entire insides are going to come shooting out of me type of gag. Most of the time, it would cause me to dry heave and/or throw up. My children thought it was both hilarious and frightening at the same time. Please tell me that you (or someone you know) has had this before. I was *this close* to filming it because it is so weird!

NONSTOP URINATION: I’m pretty sure I must have the smallest bladder on the planet and that I pee more than most, but pregnancy takes that up about 50 notches. It could be that I consume at least 3 liters of water a day (Probably even more since that is about all I can drink right now. Who wants some fizzy water with lemon? Cranberry? How about some lime? We can pretend it is a cocktail! Oh nevermind.) I hate to say it, but water is getting old (I want wine!) and I certainly won’t miss these frequent bathroom visits one bit. My husband, as my witness, watched (in the other room, of course) me use the toilet directly before an ultrasound and 10 minutes into it, the tech made me go empty my bladder again because it was getting in the way of their view! Crazy.

HEARTBURN: I hate to even utter these words for fear they will come back to haunt me, but I have barely had any heartburn this go around. With Ava and Max, I had terrible heartburn for their entire pregnancies! Does this mean that this little babe will be bald?

EXERCISE: I never exercised at all when I was pregnant with my other two children. In fact, I counted going up and down our stairs as a good workout back then! Despite the weight gain being right on track, I’ve actually tried to stay more fit this time around. I stopped running as soon as I found out, but I try to walk and/or hike weekly. By no means am I anywhere close to as fit as I was prior to the pregnancy but at least I’m trying to counteract the scone and chocolate consumption!

MOVEMENT: Let’s face it! This best part is feeling your baby move inside. That is until it gets uncomfortable and they are kicking you in the ribs or your cervix. EEK! No matter, it makes the experience feel all the more real, however surreal it may be! I started feeling this one quite early on, around 17 weeks, but very sporadically. In the past 3-4 weeks he’s been moving much more and to some extent, on a schedule.

So those are most of the physical changes that I’ve been going through these past 5 months. Next time, I’ll tell you about some of the other ways this baby is going to rock my world!

Modern Mixtape Vol. 14: She’s Alright

Published on April 5, 2013

Blog/Music

What a bizarre week! After multiple house guests, a quick trip to LA, followed by a lazy spring break — the kids didn’t want to do school and frankly, neither did I! In fact, I’d like to be permanently outside until summer hits.

Over the years I’ve found that spring is a great time for new music, which brings me to my latest mix, “She’s Alright.” It’s definitely on the electronic side, but I think you’ll like it all the same.

Artists include: Phosphorescent, Devendra Banhart, Rhye, Toro y Moi, Autre Ne Veut, Gliss, Junip, Atoms for Peace, Bonobo, Local Natives, Veronica Falls, Gypsy & the Cat, Blackbird Blackbird, Suuns, How to Destroy Angels, The Joy Formidable, and London Grammar.

Here’s to a better weekend!
(Will someone please have a cocktail for me?)

Listen on 8Tracks.

Download [HERE.]

*Please remember to support the bands by purchasing the songs you like.

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