valle vidal --- oh, my

29 august:  i don't know how i stumbled across this place in the trip-planning process, since the standard sites-of-taos lists don't always include it, sorta like valley of fire, proximate to las vegas but little known by visitors --- even cathi hadn't heard of it but after waiting for a plumber that didn't show, we drove up there --- fifty miles of dirt roads through the valley, fairly well maintained however --- the first few miles through a ted turner, 500,000-acre ranch, then into some of the best landscape this country has to offer --- traversed several thousand feet in elevation change and about twenty in degrees fahrenheit --- as we left the western end of the valley, there was the second of what would be four or five rainbows that day, depending on one's judgement as to whether or not the last one was a double rainbow

in addition to cattle, we saw a roadrunner, coyote, turkey, and deer --- and a stellar's jay and a lot of other birds i could not identify