A Birthday Day....

I have a favorite cousin.

Her name is Goldie Kay and she is more like a sister than a cousin.

I wanted to do something special for her birthday, but what?

Since our favorite thing is to jump in the car and head out on a day trip,

I thought a semi-spontaneous day trip might be just the right birthday present .

So I just told her to come over about nine in the morning and we were going "somewhere."

I started out by taking her to her favorite little general store in Tesuque, NM,

which is just north of Santa Fe.

Here she is at the restaurant and as you can see,

she doesn't like her picture taken, especially with her glasses on.

Sorry cousin!

 Tesuque Market - we had a delicious breakfast

 Scary Day of the Dead - looks like paper mache

Then I asked her where from there  - and she said Chimayo.

This is the road coming down into the valley of Chimayo.

 This is the beautiful old church.

They had luminarias up and a Christmas wreath on the front door.

There's still some fall color.

And LOTS of people.

I didn't think about it being Saturday.

 colorful signs in Chimayo

 An old truck with a broken windshield.

I thought it looked artistic - kind of a sunburst crack.

 beautiful stream in Chimayo

 A guy selling red chile and ristras

 lots of ristras out today

 It was almost impossible to find a place to park

so I had to make do with photographing the church from afar.

 Goldie made a cross of wood to put in the fence and said prayers for her kids.

 My cross of wood

 a cowboy kind of dude in a really cool car

 A pretty old cemetery

 A sign that says "BEWARE OF RAM."

He wasn't very big but he sure gave us the evil eye.

 I think this was in Cordova.

We were trying to find a little chapel on a hill and ended up on this 

TINY steep driveway that led to someone's house.

Embarassing.

Dogs barked at us.

I sure wouldn't want to have to drive down this road with snow on it!

 Here's the chapel on the hill.

I never did find out how to get up to it.

 Oh my gosh, we had a belly laugh over this one.

Someone obviously moved and left a very distinct message on the garage door.

It says:

 MOVED TO ARROYO SECO.

Behind Jehovah Witness church.

Brown House.

We would not stop laughing.

 The beautiful village of Truchas.

I wasn't going to come this far but we didn't see any snow.

Well, hardly.

 Cemetery on the way to Truchas.

Snow on the dark side of the grave.

 Snow on the peaks above Truchas

 Isn't this a beautiful scene?

 An old church in Truchas

Look at all that snow in the background.

 We always go down this little road in Truchas 

and we happened to get behind a cattle drive.

We could not stop laughing.

There was an old truck with two old-timers in it.

We let them pass and crawled along behind them.

There were teenagers and a baby in this group.

We wondered where they were going....

 Beautiful stream along the way

 Cows and snow

 Slow going.

I think this walk took about thirty minutes.

The lead cow finally turned into a driveway and every cow followed right behind him.

Then the truck turned in and the guys waved at us.

That was so much fun!

 The mountains and edges of Truchas

We had a beautiful day.

The purpose of this trip was to be spontaneous (we were),

see beautiful scenery (we did),

and treat my wonderful cousin to a great birthday trip to northern New Mexico.

I think I succeeded....

Taos Colors

The weather here in Albquerque is definitely cooler.

Which makes me think of Fall.

Which makes me automatically think of Taos.

I'm headed there soon and I wanted to show you how Taos 

looked when I went in the middle of October two years ago.

If these don't want to make you take a trip to Taos and Arroyo Seco,

then I don't know what will.

Enjoy.....and get ready to follow me on another Taos adventure in a few weeks.....

 Rio Grande gorge with chamisa

 drive on the way through Taos pass

 valley of Valdez, near Taos Ski Valley

 Arroyo Seco - a rainbow of fall colors!

 descanso with fall trees and Taos mountain with cloud cover

 red chile ristras and dahlias

 what a contrast of colors!

 road to an adobe that's over 100 years old

 famous Arroyo Seco truck with Virginia Creeper

 golden colors with adobe

 cloud cover

 pretty horses

village of Valdez - look at that gold!

New Work

I have two new 145 Challenge paintings and the

new "OCEANA" painting for the Weems water show.

I am almost to #100.

Then I will have only 100 more paintings to paint by September 30th.

Uh-oh, that's not that far away.

I am such a procrastinator.

I said I wasn't going to do any shows this year

but I can't help doing the Weems themed shows.

The shows are so diverse, fun and interesting 

and I just love the people who work at the gallery.

They are so friendly and work really hard to promote and sell artwork.

 "AS THE CROW FLIES"

6x6"

#104

"SUMMER DREAMS"

6x6"

#105

 "OCEANA"

15x40"

available at Weems Gallery - 505-293-6133 or weems@weemsgallery.com

You guys know me, I don't paint oceans.
I paint New Mexico.
This was a stretch for me.
And I don't know if I want to paint another one!

If you want to read more about the 145 Challenge paintings, 

please CLICK HERE.

nice weekend

 This is what my studio looked like Friday. 

We cleaned a bit of our garage and lots of stuff came into my studio, 

most of it you can see here.

I should be cleaning and painting. BUT.

The weather is so pretty and there's the Los Ranchos Holiday Shop and Stroll this weekend, sooo...I'm going antiquing!

This is the tree at the end of my backyard.

I took this photo a couple of weeks ago and the colors were so gorgeous.

This is how the tree looks now.

All of the bright gold is gone and now there's just a dull, dusty gold.

 This is one of two crabapple trees in my backyard.

I have never ever seen them so full of berries.

We have been inundated with birds of all kinds.

Not surprising, since I have eight birdfeeders around the yard.

I thought this was a female robin, but am not sure.

  Isn't she cute?

Beautiful voices at Kelly Jo Ceramics for the Holiday Stroll.

 This little tiny house was at the back of one of the antique stores.

It has a Spanish style roof, a wood stove pipe, shutters on the windows and is probably 4ft.x 5ft.

Perfect studio size, lol.

I could put wheels on it and just move it around in my yard whenever I wanted some sunshine.

 This was one of my purchases - a complete book of Vincent Van Gogh's self portraits.

Complete with historical faces about where there were painted 

and what was going on in his life at the time.

20% off and score!

 This was one of my favorite finds of the day.

Actually my cousin spotted it as soon as we walked in the antique store.

A cross made out of some kind of local wood  with the bark still on it.

I love the shape.

The cross and flowers are made out of some very heavy metal.

This was $38 and 30% off because it was "wall art."

It will join the others in my cross collection.

 This is the most unusual nativity I've ever seen.

A wind chime!

It is so pretty, everything is made out of clay.

I will hang it next to my Christmas tree.

This was $20 and 20% off and I just happened to see it hanging in

a little room at the back of the Antique Co-op on 4th Street NW.

 A beautiful view of the Sandia mountains and some people seeing if the red chile is still good.

This will be a painting soon.

Love the blue of the mountains and the color of the fields.

A few cranes - maybe Sandhill - in a field near the Rio Grande Nature Center.

Okay, there you have it - my weekend.

Now it's back to cleaning, painting, working, exercising, and getting ready for Christmas.

If you're so inclined, check out my weight loss blog, "Dee's 365 Days."