Riding down New Mexico 313 through Sandia Pueblo this afternoon, I was reminded of how beautiful New Mexico is. I was riding with a woman who’d just moved here from Tucson (no slouch of a city in terms of its desert beauty), and she kept noticing things I took for granted – a trio of horses munching in a mown alfalfa field, grey cottonwoods, leafless with that muted palette that makes the river valley so soft yet rich this time of year, the looming presence of the north flank of the Sandias. OK, that’s one thing I never take for granted – the looming presence of the Sandias. But it was fun seeing all this through her fresh eyes.

We live in a beautiful place.