Bandelier

Bandelier national monument is about two hours away from Albuquerque. I have been there several times, always liked it, and want to spend more time there, but always seem to have only a few hours. It is similar to Mesa Verde, but much smaller and not as spectacular. Anika and her friend from Mills wanted to go see it and I tagged along to take some pictures. The sun was low and only occasionally hidden by clouds. We were there early enough to get some of the warm colors photographers like, before the sun could not reach down into the deep Frijoles Canyon anymore. You can see the whole set on my Picasa album.

The very fist time I was in Bandelier was in 1984 when my friend Jürg visited there on our grand USA tour. We've had had some trouble with our VW bus and kept getting flat tires. Just as we drove into Bandelier, we had another one. This time the culprit was a set of keys someone had lost. They were laying in the sandy drive and one of them pointed straight up, punching another hole into our tire.
Unbelievably, that's almost 30 years ago! That's when my second life started with a six-month visit to North America, and then continued a few years later with me moving to the USA.

These Bandelier pictures turned out okay. Some of them could have used a little bit more sunlight. For the one above I was waiting for the sun to come back out behind the clouds, but it did so only partially. Taking pictures at sunset is stressful. Should I wait for the light to get better or rush to the next site in hopes that there is enough time to get a good picture there as well?
It was a good time of the year to be there to take pictures. I had hoped for more snow on the ground to accentuate the pictures, but was compensated with a park that had a manageable number of tourists. I definitely have to go back and try again.

Did you know that the national monument was named after Adolph Francis Bandelier? And that he had been born in Switzerland? Another guy from Bern who likes New Mexico ;-) Here is another interesting article about him.
So, this brings us full circle: Swiss leaving their home country, going to Bandelier national monument, and ending up back in Europe. Bandelier in Spain, and me in Ireland.