The Great 2008 Southwestern Road Trip - I

I've kind of been slacking off with my posts recently. I don't really have an excuse, but I do have an explanation. A couple weeks ago I read on an art blog about "virtual"  plein air paintouts. As I understand it, a normal plein air paintout would have a group of artists, each with his own easel and other paraphernalia, meet somewhere in the area and spend a morning or afternoon painting all the best parts of the given locale. Clearly good fun, a chance to visit with other artists, share tips. . . whatever. Now by contrast, these "virtual" paintouts might take place anywhere in the world and the artists "meet" at the agreed-upon location via

Google Earth. Of course, you forgo the visits with the other artists and you don't get to share tips, but you can do it all in your bathrobe - how cool is that?

But I digress. The point of this is that I finally discovered and installed Google Earth and have been having a great time since then planning and re-planning my May road trip. I think I've got a workable itinerary now and still have about two months to tweak it. Ain't technology wonderful.

Meanwhile, over the next couple of days, I thought I'd post some of the photographs from my 2008 trip. I know some of you have already seen these particular shots, an overview of the trip, but I showed them off before I started this blog, so most of you have not.

 

In 2008, I was living in Fort Worth so my route took me up through Amarillo, Santa Fe, over the Rio Grande (see the previous post) and up into Colorado. The picture above, of aspens and spruce in the snow, was taken in south-central Colorado between Pagosa Springs and Durango. I hadn't seen much snow for a while, so I thought it was pretty neat.

 

I spent the night in Durango and left at dawn for Silverton on the "Million Dollar Highway". As soon as it was light enough to see, it was light enough to see that it was snowing - big time. In no time I found myself in the middle of a full-blown blizzard on a wonderful mountain road I'd never before traveled - with nary a guard rail in sight and the river 'way down there over the side.

This picture, taken in the northern outskirts of Durango, show how much snow built up since I'd left town. You see, I eventually got Silverton where I had breakfast and talked to one of the locals about whether or not I should continue on my planned route around the mountain past Telluride and down to Dolores and Cortez. I found his answer rather equivocal and opted to return the way I had come back to Durango. Yeah, I know -- Chicken. . . !

Taking the highway west from Durango to Cortez, I passed the entrance to Mesa Verde National Park in a cold, soaking rain and decided to bypass that side trip and look for something else. I found a motel for the night in Cortez and headed west where the brighter sky showed some promise of something other than rain. Just wandering around near the Colorado/Utah border I stumbled upon a small section of Canyonlands National Park. I don't think I had even heard of Canyonlands before, and here it turned out to be one of the highlights of my whole trip.

The previous picture and these next two were all taken at the Needles Overlook. When I arrived, the weather was as good as I was to see that day. The river in the middle distance is the Colorado. The weather, of course, was moving in from the west and I was fairly sure that by the end of the day it would be very wet again. One of my favorite shots from the trip is this one of the storm passing the peak known as the northern six shooter. There's another just out of the frame to the left, which is the southern six shooter.

I remember hoping that as the storms approached, one after another, I'd have an opportunity to get some lightning shots. But, it was not to be. When the storms started closing on the Overlook, I started moving in the direction of the truck. By the time I got there I was in the middle of a sleet storm, soaking wet and cold as hell. Then, headed back east towards Colorado and my motel, the storm closed in close around me and I finally got to see the lightning - from inside the cloud. The lightning just blinded me for a moment - it was the thunder that was truly impressive.

*****

Now, if I can keep on task for the next few days, I should post several more pictures from this trip. But, as I said, finding Canyonlands was fortuitous and this was just one overlook. After studying the area in Google Earth I decided that my May road trip will include the drive up the San Juan Valley past Telluride, up to the Black Canyon of the Gunnison near Montrose, and west to Moab - where I've scouted out much of the rest of Canyonlands. It's gonna be great !!!