Monday the 30th was day 3 at Bosque for morning shoot. I was treated to another gorgeous morning. Venus was very bright in the early morning sky and added to the landscape scene with snowy geese roosting on the shallow pond water near the Bosque refuge entrance. The next shooting location was at another shallow pond full of Sandhills just after sunrise. Great morning light allowed for more nice “Sandhill Crane-scape” opportunities. Upon leaving the refuge, I spotted a Great-blue Heron in a deathly still position with perfect reflection off the water, which was smooth as glass. Thus ended my great first experience shooting at Bosque NWR. It was onward to Santa Fe, arriving shortly after noon local time. After a bite to eat, I headed up to this place called Nambe Falls about 20 miles north of Santa Fe. Upon arriving there, I found out it was closed for the season. Ah well.
Never fear, though, for this allowed me to pay a visit to Bandelier for a couple hours just to acquaint myself. There is a little town called White Rock which you drive through on the way to Bandelier. The town is actually kind of popular I guess because of it’s “overlook”. I noticed signs leading to an overlook, but scoffed at it initially as “just another overlook”. I thought I’d stop by near sunset on the way back just for a look-see. Anyway, I got to the Bandelier visitor center and hiked about a mile or so through some of the interesting ancient Southwest pueblo civilization dwellings dating back to the 1400s and prior. So on the way back, I stopped by that White Rock Overlook. It was not your ordinary overlook! This was a 270 degree view from north through east through southwest down this amazing canyon which the Rio Grande flows through. Some tabletop mesas in the distance would remind one was in southeast Utah. I spent quite a bit of time at sunset photographing this. In fact, it was so good and the view was so vast that sunrise should be just as good, therefore I’ll be getting up very early once again for this. Then I’ll do some day hiking in Bandelier after that and photograph a couple waterfalls and other miscellaneous stuff. Then it’s homeward-bound after that.
