On our last night in Tesuque, after we’d gone to see Lyle Lovett at the Santa Fe Opera, we stopped by a grocery store to get carrots. Not because we needed some vitamins or a delicious orange snack – we went because the handbook o’ instructions at our vacation rental indicated that the resident alpacas loved carrots. We’d been watching the alpacas all week and wanted to leave on good terms and all, so we fed them the carrots then got in the car and headed onward.

But not before the property manager showed us the bear tracks from the night before. (We did not provide bear snacks.)