I never liked the coming of fall as a kid growing up in New Mexico. First of all, it meant summer (i.e., freedom) was over. The sunlight got washed out in a way that made me feel dizzy, but it was still hot enough that I sweated in my cute back-to-school sweaters. All the livestock at the State Fair made me sneeze a mile away. And I couldn’t seem to escape the cloying aroma of green chiles blistering in their propane-fired drum roasters.
Don’t get me wrong: I’m still a summer or winter girl, season-wise; I like my extremes. But I’ve grown to love Fall in the Southwest–cotton-candy clouds spinning in the blue drum of the sky, harvest colors splashed on everything from the aspens down to the pumpkin patches, blooming sage and chamisa and piñon smoke and, yes, roasting chiles all melding into a special incense the best perfumer in the world could never fake.
My sister and I just took a roadtrip through this autumnal paradise to visit family and friends and to do a little fly-fishing. I picked her up in Vegas, dogs in tow, and then we went down through Arizona to New Mexico and then, after a few days, back up through Colorado and Utah to home. Man we lived our best Southwestern Fall Life…. We ambled down the acequia from our awesome Airbnb in Corrales to buy coffee from Candlestick Roasters and a little bowl (on the honor system) from Hanselmann Pottery; we ate chile-cheese fries from Tesuque Village Market at the Camel Rock overlook (if it gets more New Mexican than that, please don’t tell me…); we browsed galleries and smeared apricot jam on fresh frybread on the High Road to Taos; we fished the Brazos Box and the Uncompaghre and survived an impressive midnight thunderstorm in our tent in Blanco River Canyon. If that doesn’t entice you into booking a trip Southwest next fall, maybe these pics will do the trick.
Rye enjoying a little doghouse someone built on the Brazos 
Cheryl dropping another perfect cast in the Box 
Blanco River Canyon at sun-up 
Hand Artes gallery on the High Road at Truchas 
La Capilla in Truchas 
Looking west from the High Road toward the Jemez 
The San Juans by Pagosa Springs 
Fall firs
The Rookery 