New Mexico: Taos and Santa Fe

(Window detail, Mabel Dodge Luhan House, Taos)



It's easy, on a cold, gray, Northwest February day, to daydream of warmer places. So, going through photos this morning, I lingered over a file full of images taken on a trip to New Mexico last fall.

The days were warm, and the nights were chilly enough for a sweater, but all day long sunlight washed over us and painted the landscape with deep shades of ocher and sienna.

Exploring the sights, the places Georgia O'Keefe had lived and painted and the ancient pueblos and Missions, I could see why Taos and Santa Fe take hold in the imagination.

(Photos by Cheryl-Anne Millsap)


I wrote about the strong, determined and ambitious women who settled there in "Well-behaved Women Didn't Make New Mexico's History." And the power of the New Mexico landscape in the almost spiritual quest of "Seeking a Sense of the Right Place".

I've already planned a return trip. I'll bring back more of the sun, more photographs and enough inspiration to carry me through another winter.