aspens

I'm sure that one person's aspen view is much like another's - but they made a quite spectacular sight today.   For some reason, I've never before done the touristy leaf-peeper thing and driven up the ski basin road to see the trees - which are, indeed, amazing, and stretch on and on.   And it was a gorgeous sunny day - though there was snow on the side of the road from last week's fall.

I hope that the next time I drive up here it isn't in a large Chevy Silverado truck, though.   The choice of vehicle when I arrived at Albuquerque airport on Wednesday evening was not huge - no cars at all, and apart from a miniaturized SUV that looked impractical, it was this or a mini-van.   So I thought I'd indulge my inner tough-girl fantasies, which are fine when you're driving up I-25 near midnight singing along to "I fought the law" on the oldies station, and not so fine when you're trying to squeeze the beast into a parking space.   I have a feeling that I might have exorcised this very long standing dream - I didn't feel so much tough as as though I might fail to see an ordinary sized car somewhere down beneath me.   And to think that when I was five, I wanted to be a long distance lorry driver!  This is after I wanted to drive a crane, but just before I wanted to be a choirboy (an occupation for which I would have been ill-fitted on a number of fronts).   Nonetheless, the bumper came in handy for taking less-orthodox tree shots ...

And then we drove down the mountain a bit further, and walked the Borrego trail (which seemed to have become significantly longer and steeper since I was last on it), and contemplated how beautiful aspens look from underneath.