Framedlight

  We were going to fly back to the UK from Denver airport so we planned a slow route from Santa Fé to Denver, through Colorado and the Rockies. But when we got up to leave the Parador on the Friday morning, we found that snow had fallen quite heavily overnight as was evidenced in the car park. We were pleased that we were now in possession of a Ford 4x4 which we felt would do the trick. The route took us back over our well worn path of Highway 84, running north west past Ghost Ranch and the Pedernal  towards a town called Chama. In fact by the time we got up to Abiquiu the snow was disappearing although we could still see it falling on the Pedernal. I stopped to take a picture of the entrance to Gost Ranch as we realised we had not got one Snow was falling on the Padernal - Georgia O'Keeffe's mountain There was lots of colour in the hills as we drove west Chama is only 7 miles from the Colorado border and, according to Wikipedia has a very harsh subarctic continental climate. N

  We had lunch by Abiquiu Lake and then on a whim, as we liked the name, decided to drive up the road to a place called Coyote. There was little there apart from a rather nice adobe church which was closed and a small settlement. On the way back to the main Highway 84 we passed yet another cemetery which required an exploration. We found the grave of a lady who had died at the venerable age of 106 years. She had been postmaster of Youngsville for 30 years and also helped as a midwife and sold Avon products. Not all of the graves were grand Finally we headed back to Abiquiu and carried on the search for Georgia O'Keeffe's 'white place' taking a back road which ran closer to it. We unfortunately we still could not really see it but the cottonwoods were lovely and we came across the desiccated body of a bob cat! Then it was back on the road past the river to the house

  We had noticed a rough path up into the hills a little bit east of Ghost Ranch. Most of the land was fenced off so this seemed the best place to explore from. It was not so much a footpath but a track following an arroyo or dry stream. It was pretty rough going but we persisted and really enjoyed the scenery and the solitude. The sun was out and the sky was perfectly blue although in the shade there was still some persistent snow on the ground. We climbed up the stream going through narrow gullies until we reached the top of the hill and the watershed. Here we could gaze across at the view of blue mountains beyond. View from the top to the distant mountains Reflection in the parked van