Santa Fe. Three days to do the job. A support organization for
environmental non-profits in a Northern New Mexico adobe. Five mile commute
from the RV Park. Interesting job. Saturday. Time to move on. North on Hwy 285 from Santa Fe. High desert. Past Wind Mountain. Past San
Antonio Mountain. No high passes. Crossed the state line for Colorado at
Antonito, the eastern terminus of the Cumbres and Toltec scenic railway.
San Luis Valley, past the sand dunes, to San Luis Lakes State Park out in
the middle of the valley. Saltgrass, rabbit brush, and greasewood. A
birding walk produced canada goose, ring billed gull, mourning dove, common
nighthawk, loggerhead shrike, barn swallow, and a new bird for us…. sage
thrasher.
San luis
Help! The sky is on fire!
Santa fe
The Santa Fe setup. And not a sunset in sight.
Taos
The previous sunset, the incredible melting sun, brought to you compliments
of some wildfires in Arizona. The sun must have set directly over them and
got so hot you could actually see it beginning to melt.
You’ll no doubt be relieved to hear that this sunset sequence is the last
one from Taos. I tried to stop, I couldn’t. I had to take sunset pictures
every single night. We are not set up with such a view in Santa Fe to be
subjected to such sunsets, so you’re all off the hook for a while. In the meantime, one more sequence to remember Taos by:
(I have the full size originals if anyone needs a wallpaper)
Taos
Our job in Taos, a nonprofit school, it took all week. We didn’t work at
the school, a collection of residential adobe style buildings; we worked at
administrative offices in an old military barracks. Adobe military barracks
from the turn of the century, as was the 18,000 square foot building across
the way, the old convent, now unoccupied. History and artwork. Taos. We asked where we should go to see some birds. We were told there weren’t
any good places around. We saw a ring necked pheasant in the field behind
the barbeque restaurant. We looked on the internet and found Baca Park,
just a few blocks down from where we worked, with a reference to the hard to
find, endangered willow flycatcher. Walked right to it, number 377. Willow
flycatcher. Canyon towhees. Time to move on. Sixty miles south. Santa Fe.