In 2020, my wife and I planned to visit New Mexico in the fall to see the national parks and other scenic areas and attend the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta. That fell apart with COVID-19. This year, we made it to New Mexico in the spring, but that did not cover the balloons. We returned in late September to go to the Fiesta with her sisters.

Having gone that far, I did not want to return home immediately. It seemed a good idea to me that we stay on for another week or more to visit the San Juan Mountains in southwestern Colorado, with the bonus that it would be fall color season. We got lucky that our timing turned out to be pretty close to the peak. After two days in Telluride, we had a 3-day rental of a log cabin in Ridgeway.

We ran into another guy taking photos at one of the spots we went to with a view of the Sneffels Range. He suggested that we go to an area called the Mt. Wilson Mesa. We did that the next day, spending the morning driving around the roads there, looking for good views. One of them was along a road where we looked over a small valley and the magnificently colored aspen trees toward Wilson Peak.

Our trip continued to Ouray, Aspen, and Great Sand Dunes, but this was one of my favorite shots.