It was one of those New Mexico-I-wish-I-had-a-camera moments. Just as well I didnt, come to think of it, what with the fact that I was driving in heavy traffic and stuff. Plus I’m not much of a photographer, so it likely wouldn’t have lived up to itself.

I spent the early evening yesterday out on the west mesa, by the volcanoes, at the Double Eagle Time Trial. It’s a summer bike racing series that goes back 20 years. I wasn’t racing, but went to help out and hang with my bike buds.

The site, out on Paseo del Volcan by the new mattress factory, is beautiful, one of those wonderful New Mexico vistas where you get pretty close to a 360-degree horizon – Sandias, Manzanos, the volcanoes to the north. It was cloudy and windy and cool, stormy all around, but it didn’t really rain on us.

As I was driving home, the freeway was closed so they detoured us onto Central – old Route 66 for you romantics. Just as I was crossing the Rio Grande, the sun slipped under the cloud deck and lit up the bosque with a rich sunset yellow beneath a grey cloud sky. It was magnificent.

As I headed up into the heights, the same sun was lighting up the whole of the Sandias. I broke my “no cell phone in the car” rule – just this once – and called Mom to make sure she and Dad weren’t missing it out their big picture window.

They weren’t.