Journey to Santa FE

On Friday I journeyed to Santa Fe.  I decided to take a side trip via Cumbres and La Manga passes, a more scenic route than the straight shot down 285 from Alamosa.  I suspected I would get some snow over the passes, and I did...here it's coming down hard, but at about 9000 feet the road was just wet.  Over and between the two passes, a little over 10 thousand MSL, it was a different story; the road was covered with slush and several inches of snow were on the ground, with more falling.  I made it OK, going in low gear at 20 MPH most of the time...but if I had known how snowy it was I would have chosen an alternate route.  And of course this all went down on May 15.

Echo Amphitheatre, about 65 miles NW of Santa Fe.  Stroll to the mouth of the hole in the rock and it really is a fine echo chamber.

Fine colored rocks at the amphitheatre.  This is only a few miles from Ghost Ranch, where Georgia O'Keeffe spent many years of her life. I wanted to go to the ranch but the roads are all dirt...mud on this day...and with rain pouring down and having dodged a bullet going over the snowy passes I didn't want to press my luck.

Below the snowline, thunderstorms crackled.  One bolt of lightning hit very close to my car!  The result was fine mammatus near Espanola.  The stormy weather of the last two weeks has been PERFECT for dramatic photographs.

The Plaza in Santa Fe.  This place has been a center of activity for 400 years.

Typical Santa Fe architecture.

The courtyard of the New Mexico Museum of Art.

The same courtyard an hour later.   More snow!

This dramatic weather picture is...a painting.  At the art museum.

The falling snow dappled a sculpture with flecks of white.

The weather adds to the art.  The surreal streaks were devised by no human mind...they are trickles of water running down the wall as the snow melts.

A cool Santa Fe scene...check out the brightly painted pillars.  Art is everywhere here.  And one can see why...the clear air, turbulent weather, and colorful rock formations are all conducive to inspiration and creativity.

San Miguel Mission...the oldest church in the US.  It was built about the same time as the Palace of the Governors here...around 1610.

There is a museum inside the Palace.  Included is this stagecoach from the 1850s.  A rough, cramped, dangerous mode of travel indeed.  A far cry from cruising the interstates in my Solara.  Even cattle car plane travel is comfy in comparison!  We really are spoiled, living in the first world in the 21st century.