I intend to publish a post very soon about lessons learned from my first attempt at capturing a memorable photograph of the Milky Way. In preparing for that shot we discovered Ghost Ranch https://www.ghostranch.org/, a dark sky location west of Abiquiu, NM on US Highway 84 with beautiful mountains and scenery. Many western movies such as the 1991 film City Slickers with Billy Crystal and Jack Palance have been filmed there. I knew that I wanted to do a Milky Way shot that incorporated that beauty in the foreground, but it turned out that overnight accommodations were very limited due to COVID staffing shortages.
Fortunately, I found a small 2 unit B&B vineyard nearby named Las Parras de Abiquiu http://lasparras.com/and booked an overnight reservation on August 7th. Las Parras translates to The Vines. We arrived in mid-afternoon with expectations of clear, new moon skies. But our expectations dimmed as haze from Western forest fires obscured the horizon. Nonetheless, we enjoyed walking the grounds of the vineyard and photographing the beautiful flowers and abundant geese and birds that thrived on the irrigated oat fields and gardens. We also enjoyed a scrumptious dinner of grilled trout at the nearby Abuqui Inn http://www.abiquiuinn.com/cafe-abiquiu .
It turned out that we were able to see capture a photograph of the stars and Milky Way galactic center at 10:30 PM that night. My Milky Way photo, and the lessons learned, will be the subject of my next blog post. So for now, I hope that you enjoy the photos from our stay at Las Parras de Abiquiu, and remember to Capture the Memories Found in Travel and Life.
David Hood, dba David Hood Photography Email: d300dave@gmail.com Mobile: (210) 422-0572
