In mid October we took our last  trip of the year, a couple of days to Taos, New Mexico, to look for changing foliage which had been very elusive due to warm weather.  While there we saw one of the most spectacular sights in our state, the Rio Grande (pronounced Ree-yo Grahnd-ay for you non New Mexicans) Gorge.  Picture driving along on fairly flat land for miles and then suddenly arriving at  a long bridge over a huge split in the earth.  Far down at the bottom you can see the Rio Grande winding its way through the Gorge.  You can read more about it here.  My wife tried to take pictures from as many angles as possible to try to give you an idea of the depth and length of this rift in the Earth.

We also drove what is called The Enchanted Circle starting at Taos, winding throught the towns of Questa, Red River, Eagle Nest and Angel Fire, eventually arriving back at the starting point.  We did see some beautiful foliage between Questa and Red River but, between Angel Fire and Taos the branches were quite bare.

Just outside of Angel Fire, in the Moreno Valley, is the DAV Vietnam Memorial built on the convergence of what is believed to be ley lines, primeval lines of force.  Read more about the Memorial and its creator here.

On the way home we got a bit of a surprise.  When we drove into Taos the pass was mostly green.  After two very cold nights, suddenly there was an explosion of color.  My wife snapped as many pictures as possible. 

Since then, Taos has become very cold and there has been a pretty good snowfall.  This is a good thing as the area depends on the annual influx of skiers.  As for us, we'll just wait for warmer weather before we go back.

Maybe June...

In September we returned to Bloomington, New Mexico to stay at the Best Western there.  It's a really great motel, one of the best we have ever stayed in.  The location is really great as you can go West to Farmington and the Navajo Nation or North into Colorado.  This time we chose to go back to Durango, Colorado and then further North to Silverton.  There is a train that runs from Durango to Silverton but this time we drove.  The mountain driving is a bit scary as there are no guard rails.  Some of the trees are 150 feet tall and you can see the tops of them off to the side of the road.  My wife is really not crazy about heights so we probably won't be doing that again.  Next time we'll take the train.

It has been rather warm so we didn't see as much changing foliage until we reached Silverton and, in fact, it was the first day that they had seen any cool Fall weather at that location.  But Colorado is still beautiful in any season.  It's very hard to take a bad picture so there a lot of them to be posted here.

It seems that I have been neglecting this blog since last May.  I don't know where the time has gone.  I always tell people that, if you want to get really, really busy, retire.

Anyhow, we have had quite a few trips so, in addition to some new pics of the most beautiful cat in the world, I'm going to add an album for our Las Cruces Trip.  We went there in April to visit the Southern part of our state.  Among the  sites we saw were the Ranch and Heritage museum, the Mexican city of Palomas and the White Sands National Monument.

Note: The horse sculpture at the museum is not painted.  It is colored with tiny beads.

All my life I have been hearing about White Sands but I never knew what it really was.  It's the world's largest above ground deposit of gypsum which normally is only found underground.  It made for some really spectacular pictures.  You can read more about it here.

Next entry will be about our trip to Northwest New Mexico and Colorado.