Clear Water

It all started with the magic energy field generated by a visit to an artist in the canyon. Even before dropping down a thousand feet to Embudo, we hit a dimensional shift. The air was more transparent. The colors of the sky and landscape seemed more saturated, and it felt as if the underlying rocks were wide awake.

After that, completely on a whim because the turn was dead ahead, I aimed us for Pilar to drive along the Rio Grande. We often make that route a special trip and crawl along in second gear to look for ducks and geese and eagles. This time, though, there were no birds at first, but the water was extraordinary in its clarity and color. Even from fifty feet above, we could see dark green patches I knew were underwater plants on the lee side of the bends. I had to pull off twice, just to get a little closer. The second time is when I shot the video (be sure to set the player to the highest resolution).

Farther down the road, we came around a curve and ran into a miracle. What’s that fellow looking at, I wondered, slowing down to see, when all at once I realized we were surrounded by a herd of bighorn sheep (both sexes), grazing right beside the road!—blocking the road, for that matter, about thirty of them in all. I sat and stared and swore and took some iPhone shots. A huge ram lay down in the dirt along the shoulder, twenty feet in front of the car. What an amazing, mind-blowing thrill. It was like they didn’t care a thing about us. In eighteen years here and many round trips up and down that road, neither of us has seen anything like it. I’ll put up some pictures in the next few posts.

Hoo, boy.