Out of Santa Fe heading northwest to Colorado, we chose a longer route to go by the artist Georgia O'Keeffe's Ghost Ranch. First, however, you need to know, or be reminded, that New Mexico people take the rules they make more seriously than federal or state law. For example, in Abique, the closest town to O'Keeffe's ranch, there's an ominous sign forbidding photographs within the village limits. Abique sits under cottonwood branches, enveloped in a historic aura of Spanish architecture, framing the most photogenic temptations to test.

The sign, however, means the sheriff, the judge and the jury live here in the form of one person. Furthermore, the First Amendment ended when we passed over the cattle guard at the village boundaries, along with the other 26 amendments in tow. I know in Coyote, New Mexico, the site of the famous moonlight photograph of a cemetery by Ansel Adams, the residents put visitors to flight before cameras are loaded, focused, or unpacked.

Miss O'Keeffe's seven and one-half acres were the right size outfit for an artist to run. Her vista, however, captured endless miles of the light and color of the Southwest. The folks running the place, the Presbyterian Church, encourage all the arts. Dormitories and cafeteria support week-long writing and painting workshops. The bulletin board announced day trips to Santa Fe ending at the opera. The relaxed atmosphere was reinforced by volunteers harvesting apples and tidying up around the grounds.

The strange part was the paucity of Georgia O'Keeffe's painting and no reference to the location of her ranch or ranch house. Why was it named Georgia O'Keeffe's Ghost Ranch Museum, then? One guess is that the 3100 acres open to the public belonging to the Presbyterian Church landlocks the Ghost Ranch either by survey or a case number in district court. But I couldn't find any evidence of where the O'Keeffe ranch was, or who controlled it. I looked around the museum for information, like a map or photograph. We ask a lady in the office the location. She gave a vague reply. Vague enough to make dropping the subject seem to be the best idea.

Back on the road, we ate lunch at a roadside park, looking toward the canyons and washes and peaks of Miss O'Keeffe's canvas conceptions. Clouds floated over yellow, pebble-strewn earth, exposing the jagged rocks and woven crevices cut in cliff walls. A scene too vast to use binoculars. A scene to well captured by Miss O'Keeffe's paints and brushes to behold by an amateur.

Onto Colorado, I navigated on a course so true, the feat would have made Galileo think he was shooting off a falling star. I made every turn correctly, used the right turn signals, stopped in time for stop signs, dodged shards of tire on the road, gave buzzards space to take flight, and observed the speed limit to a tenth of a mile precision. Then upon arrival in Mancos, Colorado, for the night, I got lost in a place not much larger than Mertzon while looking for the only three-story house in town.

The lady running the bed and breakfast caused the error. In her sales talk, she said, "Your room overlooks Mesa Verde National Park six miles away." Monitoring the odometer every five-tenths of a mile, I turned off at a bed and breakfast sign six miles from Mesa Verde National Park on a road so rough it's notched the blade of a road grader.

After a tense debate over directions, my partner suggested she drive awhile, suggesting perhaps I was too tired to stay under the wheel. I was too tired, but I wasn't out of ideas. Back in Mancos, I asked her to ask a lady jogging the way to the bed and breakfast, using sound reasoning that in a burg as small as Mancos a jogger had to lap town 10 times to get any exercise. The big black and tan looking pooch on her leash must have been a seeing eye dog. She said she hadn't noticed a three-story house in Mancos. Was I sure it wasn't in Cortez?

After a few more blocks we turned to go back to the highway and drove right up to the B and B. The owner was an ex airline hostess. She uses air miles to locate Mesa Verde instead of ground distances. She must have served in the first class cabin, as she brought out a very fine glass of wine for my partner much superior to the raw vintage kitchen brands offered by most innkeepers. As a last thought before taking a nap, I figured maybe the people at O'Keeffe's Ghost Ranch Museum might be related to the lady jogger some way. Could be they never have noticed the location of the Ghost Ranch.

October 25, 2001