The sun was out when we got out of bed around 7:15, and there was only a light dusting of new snow. (The forecast had been for several inches of snow overnight.) I had breakfast and made my coffee to go. We left around 8:05 in the Jeep.

We went to Echo Amphitheater, a few miles north of Ghost Ranch. The amphitheater didn't look too interesting photographically from the parking lot, so I just walked in without a camera to check it out. The amphitheater was in fact not interesting photographically, but the trees on the red rock cliff just to the north of the amphitheater were interesting. I went back to the Jeep and got my camera gear, then went back to photograph the trees and cliff face (left). While waiting for good light for other compositions, I wondered about selling my Canon TS-E 24mm f3.5 L (Mk I) in addition to the Canon EF 16-35mm f2.8 L USM (Mk I) and getting a Canon TS-E 24mm f3.5 L II instead of the Nikon AF-S Zoom Nikkor 14-24 f2.8G. For the last two years or so, 24mm has been wide enough for me, but I don't know how much the poor image quality of the 16-35 has prevented me from looking for wider compositions.

We returned to the RV around 10:30. I downloaded the images I took, then did an initial downselect in Capture One (C1). We left at 11:50 in the Jeep.

We went to the Abiquiu Inn around noon to have lunch at "the only place in town." There was one other customer when we arrived, and after a while J struck up a conversation with him. It was Napoleón Suazo-Garcia Sr., an elder of Abiquiu. He worked with Georgia O'Keeffe, and invited us to stop by his gallery later today. I had the Chipotle Honey Glazed Salmon and J had the Blue Corn Rainbow Trout. The food was delicious. A Townsend's solitaire started to attack the window, and J wondered if our guy had followed us. After we finished, we looked around the gallery/gift shop before we left.

We went to Napoleón Suazo-Garcia Sr.'s gallery in Abiquiu proper, an old pueblo just off the highway. He gave us, and thoroughly explained, some maps of Abiquiu and the Abiquiu area. We were both excited to stay in the area longer to investigate some of the things he pointed out on the map. He had lots of stories to tell, and J thoroughly enjoyed the visit. J took pictures of him, and we bought a copy of his book, The Genizaro & the Artist, in which he (the "Genizaro," of a mixed Indian tribe) describes the early years of Georgia O'Keefe (the "Artist") in the area. We left around 2:30 and ...

Drove around the town of Abiquiu. J took some pictures of the chapel and church.

Then we went to Bode's store (a Phillips 66 gas station) to get some gas in the Jeep. The person responsible for getting gas back in Alamosa (that would be me) forgot to get gas in the Jeep, so we were really low on gas. We got half a tank of gas, at an expensive $2.739/gal, to hold us over until we can get it cheaper elsewhere.
We returned to the RV around 3:35, and J wanted to relax for 30-45 minutes before we went out to photograph. I started to work up a blog entry, and I was stressed while trying to get something accomplished during the "layover." We left around 4:15 in the Jeep, and the partly cloudy skies had turned into mostly cloudy skies. :(

We stopped near our favorite location just south of Ghost Ranch as some sun was poking through a gap in the clouds (left). We had maybe 5 minutes to photograph before the clouds moved in and the light was gone.

Then we went onto the Ghost Ranch property to try to photograph Chimney Rock. The clouds had gotten really thick, the ceiling dropped, and it started snowing. We waited for conditions to improve, and I wandered around a bit. I watched a southwest towhee feeding. The snow stopped and the ceiling improved, but the light never got good.

We returned to the RV around 5:50, and I finished the blog entry.

We had dinner around 6:30 of lunch stuff — ham and Swiss on rye for me. I photographed my Canon EF 16-35mm f2.8 L USM (Mk I) and B+W 77mm slim UV and circular polarizer filters so I can list them on eBay. We turned on the generator around 8:10 for an hour and a half and watched an episode of Desperate Housewives on DVD. I processed images of the camera gear.