After an amazing weekend in Santa Fe seeing Alvvays at Meow Wolf, I went west off I25 to the town of La Veta. It is a VERY tiny town of about 700 residents, which according to some locals I spoke to becomes even smaller in winter. The stores had began adopting their winter hours, closing at 5 PM. The hotel I stayed at, the La Veta Inn, was mostly empty. Tourism had obviously come to an abrupt halt. At 7,000 feet, most of the leaves were long gone. Everything was dead. I didn't know what to take pictures of. I knew I should have just driven straight home, I thought to myself, disappointed... But, I had to at least try. As expected, what little I got was decidedly underwhelming. Mediocre content can be saved with a little experimentation in editing programs, so at least I had a little fun making chicken soup out of chicken poop (a photojournalism saying that can be applied to many aspects in life!)
A bit of history: La Veta is most famous for being closely situated to the Spanish Peaks, two mountains formations that are National Natural Landmarks. Their indigenous name from the southern Ute tribe is "Wahatoya", meaning breasts of the earth.
Radiating from the base of the West peak is a geological dike named Devil's Stairway (or Staircase, Stairsteps.)
