Framedlight

  The house we rented in Barranca, just outside Abiquiu had some beautiful scenery around it and also some neglected areas. We had some time to kill in the morning so had a look around the locality. The day was very cold and it started to snow before we set off to see Georgia O'Keeffe's house in Abiquiu. I saw a number of these feathers around the area The house itself was an old adobe construction with enough garden round it for a barbeque and some seating. I took these pictures on a different day, when the sun was shining! Just over the fence was a tumbledown adobe construction and some beautiful trees.

 It was mid afternoon by the time we had finished our tour so we decided to do one of the trails at Ghost Ranch. Chimney Rock trail is 2.6 miles long and ascends to the two dramatic chimneys that dominate the skyline over the Ranch. The sun was out, the light was mellowing and we only saw one other couple when we were there, so it was a serene ending to our day at Ghost Ranch. As a bottle of wine seemed in order for the evening we went home via Bode's Store in Abiquiu. This shop was founded in 1890 as Grant's Mercantile and was bought by an employee, Martin Bode, in 1919. It really sells everything under the sun and also has a petrol station, so is a very useful port of call for the community.

Ghost Ranch, as  I said in the last blog, was once a dude ranch, but is now owned by the Presbyterian Church and used as a retreat and workshop space. It covers many acres but the Welcome Centre is surrounded by small cottages where guests stay. As far as I know it is not overtly 'religious'. We had a quick look round the centre which lies in a bowl of hills with stunning views all the way round. There is also a museum of palaeontology as there have been a number of important digs at the ranch. The bones (not old) have probably been used in a workshop as O'Keeffe featured bones in some of her paintings. After lunch we had been booked in for the 'Landscape Tour'. We were taken in a minibus to see the places in Ghost Ranch that O'Keeffe used to paint. O'Keefe would paint the same views over and over again with different interpretations. The tour guide was excellent and provided us with lots of information on O'Keeffe and her compositions. There was a dead ...