White Sands Sunset

We drove down to Alamogordo today to visit the White Sands National Monument, with stops only for a quilt shop in Albuquerque (where CL quickly discovered that purchases over $100. are shipped free) and at a roadside stand to buy ground chillies. I shot a bunch of daylight pictures but haven't gone through them yet. But here are a couple sunset shots - real colors, not Photoshop fakes.

A Busy Day

We did four museums today: the Loretto Chapel Museum, the New Mexico Museum of Art, the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum, and the Palace of the Governors/New Mexico History Museum. We also hit a couple galleries. Only the Loretto allowed photography.

This isn't a museum, but we encountered them while walking between museums. It started out sunny today but quickly became cold and rainy, so I had to make sure that they were protected from the weather.

This is in front of the St. Francis Cathedral; we didn't tour the interior, but I did get two separate pictures of the Saint, himself.

And, finally, an entry in memory of Mr. Toad's predecessor, the Bumble Bee.

Taos to Santa Fe

When we got up this morning, it was raining and 45 degrees. When we got to the car, we realized that in the mountains it was below 32, and that the white stuff was snow. In order to get this shot, I drove a couple miles north to the edge of the Taos tribal land. After two exposures, a Taos Tribal policeman in a white suv pulled up with his lights flashing. It turns out that the mountain is tribal land, and I didn't have a permit to photograph it.

After a brief conversation I was given the option of deleting my images or going to the Tribal Governor's Office to purchase a permit. CL shot this through the wet windshield while I was following him. It's good he didn't look in his rear view mirror, or we would have had to purchase two permits. The cost was $6. I can't imagine it was worth a half hour of his time to collect that small a fee.

South of Taos we drove along the Rio Grande for a while.

And we tasted wines at two New Mexico wineries. We were impressed with the quality of both.

In Santa Fe, we had a little time to shop at the Plaza, where there is a long row of Native Americans selling mostly jewelry and other crafts.

At the Plaza, we met Chris, a childhood friend of CL's that she hadn't seen in 45 years.

Then CL & I had dinner at the Pink Adobe. She had a Blue Corn-Chile Releno and I had Blackened Catfish with shrimp and grits.

More Taos

We toured five museums today. All were great. Pictures later (maybe).

Other than that, we had a tasty lunch outside (on October 20!),

and visited the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge
(that's CL halfway across the bridge)

and drove through the mountains north of Taos.

Taos

Much of the trip from Tucumcari to Taos was not on Interstates, and it looked like the next four images.

The main thing we did in Taos this afternoon was to visit the Taos Pueblo. We had a brief tour and then wandered around shopping for Native American crafts (CL) and taking pictures (me).

Leaving Tucumcari

On the way out of town this a.m. I got a few daylight shots of what I had expected to be lit at night.

On to Tucumcari

Along I40 in Oklahoma, we were surprised to see so many windmills.

Same windmills; view from within the car.

We stopped in Elk City to visit the National Route 66 Museum. It was actually very interesting,
with cars of the era,
quilts, and all kinds of other household items.
(This one is for you, Greg.)

Eventually we got to Texas.

In Shamrock we noticed this old Conoco gas station that's been converted to the Chamber of Commerce office and a gift shop.

Along the way, we enjoyed reading the signs
(the fine print on this one was that you had to eat it all in one hour to get it free)
and not so much watching the cotton fields go by.

Eventually (again) we entered New Mexico and the Mountain Time Zone,
and we stopped for the night in Tucumcari. The place is depressed and depressing. About the only positive is the murals painted on buildings all over town.

The internet had led me to believe (I'm fairly gullible) that Tucumcari had an impressive display of old neon signs along old Route 66. Not quite, but the sign at the restaurant we had dinner at wasn't bad.
Neither was the food. Here's my pork with red chiles enchilada topped with a fried egg.