Autumn in New Mexico

My first morning in New Mexico gave me a bit of scenery that I really hadn't counted on. Snow!

Here's my little Southern California car's first encounter with precipitation.

I got to use its heated seats for the first time.

I needed to get a scenic panorama of the cliffs around Los Alamos. I ended up at the Clinton P. Anderson Scenic Overlook on the main road into town. Here we see (I think) Los Alamos Canyon and the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. I wish Blogger would leave my pictures at their full resolution. If anybody wants to see higher resolution versions of the panoramas, just ask.

Here's a picture of picture of the mesas just to the right of the center of the panorama. The Sangre de Cristos are behind the clouds. This picture isn't one of the shots that went into the panorama. I zoomed in on the mesas more than in the panorama.

Snow is pretty but I don't think I want to live where it you expect it to happen. I suppose it is nice to experience once every 20 or 30 years.

Since I'm in a panorama frenzy, here is a picture of Burnt Mountain behind the house I grew up in. There were a lot more trees when I lived in Los Alamos.

Oh, look! There's the start of a new forest in the foreground!

And to continue the frenzy, here's one more panorama from the Painted Desert. I named this picture "Kachina Point" and that's the name I gave to a picture in my Petrified Forest post. The two pictures aren't showing the same place. One has got to be Chinde Point. I'll figure it all out some day.