santafe2008

Santa Fe 2008

First I must note that Ron has given me no credit for the photographs that he is using to make his fine paintings. Here are a few of the photographs I made this year in New Mexico. Some of them may be the subjects for Ron's paintings.

We have just returned from a week in Santa Fe. On Sunday we first went to the Tesuque Pueblo flea market, then we drove out toward rain in Bandelier. We have hiked the loop trail and wanted to go on a trail we have not been on. They had a flash flood which washed out the two bridges on the falls trail, so the ranger suggested we climb the Frijolitos trail with 21 switchbacks to the top of the mesa. We then went along the mesa above the Frijoles Canyon where we could see Sandia, the Sangue de Christo and the Jemez mountain rangs. We descended on the Long Trail. This climb gave us a great view of the cliff side of the canyon where there are remains of caves carved in the cliff.

Here is a hiker on the Frijolitos trail. I do not know why he is going down.

Cliff face in the Frijoles Canyon. You can see the holes cut at the base of the clif.

The bottom of the long trail.

We then drove to White Rock and took the view. Since it had been raining there were lots of clouds and I made a number of photographs as the light changed.

View from White Rock. Black Mesa is seen in the distance looking very tan.

We spent Monday recovering from our Bandelier hike looking at galleries on Canyon Road. Tuesday we drove to Ghost Ranch and hiked up Chimney Rock. The sun was intense.

Chimney Rock is the tan rock behind the white rock. You can see smoke rising from a fire in the distance. The ranger told us they were controlling it.

We then lunched at the Abiquiu dam. I made the next photo for Ron, he is talking about painting this view. The ranger told us about a forest service road that would give us a closeup view of the Pedernal.

Abiquiu lake with Pedernal in the distance.

The Pedernal from the end. It looks like Hindu temple.

We drove to Taos on Wednesday. We turned off the river road at Pilar and drove up to the plain and then took a dirt road to the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge. Ron had his own outward bound experience by voluntarily crossing the bridge on both sides and looking over the rail. I am the one who likes to go to the edge of the cliff and jump up and down as I ask what it would take to dislodge the rock.

Rio Grande gorge. Taos is on the plain in the distance and

the Sangre de Christo mountains are on the horizon.

We debated about what to do on Thursday since we were going to the Santa Fe Opera that night to see Teddy Tahu Rhodes in Billy Budd. We decided on an easy trip to the Audubon center.

Butterfly at Audubon

We were scheduled to leave Saturday afternoon. We drove to Albuquerque and visited the Petroglyph National Monument. What we did not know was that the plane we were supposed to take to Dallas was over an hour late and we had to spend another night in Albuquerque.

Petroglyph National Monument

Paintings by Ron Countryman