Music • Photography • Writing
In place of the maples and oaks of the East Coast, the West offers autumn colors from a couple of members of the willow family: aspens and these plains cottonwoods.
The cottonwoods line the banks of the Conejos River, the perfect setting for this abandoned Spanish hacienda.
The hacienda has long since fallen into disrepair, the adobe brick now visible where the mud plaster has washed from the walls. Inside, weeds grow in the old kitchen. Beyond, cattle, the only occupants of the house nowadays, graze in the rich bottom land along the river.
By the empty windows, some old bedsprings propped against the wall seem to beckon to the lazy cattle.
On the New Mexico side of the pass, the aspen, still in their full fall color, light up the whole broad valley.
In Colorado, the aspens generally turn a uniform yellow-gold color, but in this slightly warmer clime, they are sometimes tinged with red. Both colors are an eye-catching contrast to the deep blue of the fall skies.