The show is in the sky when there are clouds. Today was one of those days when I took a ton of photos, shaking my head at the impact of it all. The colors and the freaking vistas. The clouds (my god), the wind, a perfect temperature near seventy degrees, the sun at seven thousand feet! Just driving out here in my’87 Ford F-150 with the windows open was a transcendental moment.
That’s the Rio Grande Gorge cutting through the rift valley just beyond the rolling sagebrush ocean. I don’t know how far away those mountains on the horizon are. Could be ninety miles. It’s just ridiculous. I took this shot standing in the middle of four square miles of the Taos Valley Overlook, six miles down the road from where I’m sitting now. I’ve said this many times before, but I’m simply floored at so much of New Mexico. I’ve been floored for sixteen years, even when I hated something else and tried to run away.
This is where I come to hike for exercise. At least that’s what I’ll tell you if you ask.
John Hamilton Farr lives at 7,000 feet in Ranchos de Taos, New Mexico, U.S.A. As New York Times best-selling author James C. Moore tells it, John is “a man attuned to the world who sees it differently than you and I and writes about it with a language and a vision of life that is impossible to ignore.” This JHFARR.COM site is the master writing archive. To email John, please see CONTACT INFO on .png)