The road to Socorro

Thursday,November 29th, Paul Fisher and I embarked on a photo “safari” to Bosque Del Apache (Woods of the Apache). The goals were to test out Paul’s “new” camera and his existing lens, bird and bird in flight photography and generally photograph anything that would allow us to photograph it.

Betty (Paul’s wife) and Molly acted as the quartermasters. I am not sure if we had enough snacks,soda, green tea and water to circumnavigate the globe, but anywhere in North America was certainly covered. Being amply supplied, Paul and I were able to drive for extended periods with pit stops for gas and other reasons.

Twelve hours after leaving New Haven, we arrived in Amarillo and spent the night there. Next morning we headed to Socorro. We were hoping to beat a winter storm forecast. While on the road, we saw an isolated snow storm falling about 3 miles off Hwy 40. White from cloud to the ground. The rest of the area was untouched. Quite the sight….and no, we didn’t stop to photograph it. Sometimes the memories can’t really be captured with a camera. This was a recurring lesson on this trip. How do you capture that landscape and do it justice? We measured our trip in hours and not miles.

To paraphrase Robert Frost–we had miles to go before we sleep.

I am still thinking of how vast the country is from Oklahoma City and the Short Grass Prairie to the Mountains and the desert scrub of New Mexico. While not “The Road Goes On Forever” by  Robert  Earl Keen the vistas do bring to mind The Allman Brothers “Midnight Rider”. Poets and photographers, what a mix this trip would be.

Next post– Arrival and our first afternoon.

For larger image click thumbnail

This entry was posted in Uncategorized by Admin. Bookmark the permalink.

6 thoughts on “The road to Socorro

  1. Larry and I were just there during the Crane Festival, and one day later. Lots of birds you will love it this was our 6th visit.
    Nancy

    • Lots of birds……..

      MAJOR UNDERSTATEMENT LOL!!!
      Looked like new birds had arrived but who can tell?
      Bird counts seem to be pretty random there.
      One minute they report 10K cranes, next 75.
      Like Paul said– the count is not important when you have more cranes and snow geese than you can point a lens at flying by real close, sometimes toooooo close.

      I’m sure I’ll get back there as soon as I can.

  2. Enjoy! You should see lots of cranes and snow geese. The snow geese should sound like a freight train when they take off. The road going around is also good. Lots of other birds (road runner?), snakes ect.
    John

    • Hi John
      Lots of experience with snow geese and their sound. Cranes almost make as much noise as the snow geese and neither of them ever shut up LOL.

      Paul and I have a lot of images other than the ‘glamor’ species you mentioned. We gave up on trying to edit daily so I hope the images turn out well as I go through them. Stay tuned…we might have some winners.

    • Thanks Carolyn
      Paul sent me his entry (from the trip) in this week’s STLCC Nature competition– stunning is the word that comes to mind
      You can never tell what a judge likes but his image should at least score points,if not win it outright–

      in my humble and oft disputed opinion of course LOL

Leave a Reply to BillC Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.