Mountains, plains, grasslands, forts

Abandoned windmill, Pecos. Aermotor has been in business since 1888.

Always hard to leave Santa Fe. Walking in Pecos, tapas for dinner, fine weather (wildfire smoke mostly keeping its distance).

But, today was a driving day, so we were on the road early through landscapes right out of my once-beloved The High Chaparral  (though that was Arizona), and stops at national historic spots so we could stamp our National Park Service Passport booklet.

The high desert was beautiful.  Then grasslands stretched out for miles on end, no sign of civilization except a ranch house here and there, sometimes inhabited, sometimes abandoned--intriguing yet inaccessible Rural Decay. Cattle dotting the land like insects on the fur of an enormous tawny lion. Stopped at Fort Union--a cool ruin now in the middle of nowhere, but once a busy stop on the Santa Fe Trail. Lunch at a trendy, healthful cafe in Trinidad, Colorado--a neat town, like Northampton in the Olde West, i.e.: flyer for a holistic veterinarian posted on the cafe bulletin board. Climbed over a mountain pass, and swooped down on the other side.  We passed through the Comanche Grasslands and visited Bent's Old Fort in late afternoon.  After the barren vistas, it was startling to see corn where the Arkansas River could provide irrigation. Temps crept over 100 sometimes.

Disappointed with photos I've taken, not being up to the challenges of Western scale and light, wide open spaces and high contrast.

Fort Union, New Mexico

We reached our destination on the former edge of the Dust Bowl--Lamar, Colorado--around 5:30. From a Thai restaurant on the wide Main Street, we watched a real prairie thunderstorm blow by through plate-glass windows on three sides, while cars pulled up to the window of the drive-thru liquor store across the street.