Ladies of the Canyons
Georgia O'Keeffe's ashes are spread on top of Cerro Pedernal, the angled mesa you see in the picture below. She painted it often when she was staying at Ghost Ranch in Abiquiu just north of Santa Fe. When we went to visit, it looked eternal and unchanging, just the way she saw it.
Cerro Pedernal means Flint Hill in Spanish.
Ghost Ranch was a dude ranch of sorts in the early part of the last century and it was where Georgia O'Keeffe summered for years. She loved the place and painted its rocks and mesas and scenery over and over and over.
The ranch is now a conference center, but the ranch buildings are still there and the dining hall, and there's a stable of horses for conference attendees or day visitors like us to take trail rides into the hills.
Anyone who knows me knows I am a lifelong committed Dude. Off and on over the years my family has gone to a dude ranch in Wyoming and I always love every minute of it. I've never painted it, but like Georgia O'Keeffe I'll have my ashes spread on a hilltop at the ranch.
So it all felt familiar when we went to visit Ghost Ranch one day in June. Something about a dude ranch . . . it feels like home to me, even though the landscape here looks different than "my" ranch near Wyoming's Big Horn mountains.
Several buildings at the retreat center are small museums. One has dinosaur fossils, which continue to be found in the rock sediments at Ghost Ranch. Another museum houses ancient native items and it's a good overview of indigenous history.
And . . . in one small room there was an exhibit of photographs and clothing and tools and artifacts called Ladies of the Canyons.
Pampered ladies pioneering in the west!
Remarkable women! Dudes, even!
East coast transplants in rough terrain!!
I could totally relate to it and was fascinated by this exhibit. Jim quickly wandered away, but I spent 40 minutes examining everything.
We didn't take a horseback trail ride on our visit, we weren't dressed for it. There is a bus tour that drives around and narrates Georgia O'Keeffe's story and the landscape, but we'll do that another day. Out in one meadow there is a team building challenge site for groups -- an obstacle course -- that looks out of place.
They hold weddings at the ranch, and there was a youth group attending a conference the day we were there, with a friendly man in a golf cart zipping around ferrying people to the dining hall. So the place feels institutional and awfully touristy.
But at heart it's a dude ranch surrounded by rugged scenery and this east coast lady will always be there for that.
Cerro Pedernal means Flint Hill in Spanish.
Ghost Ranch was a dude ranch of sorts in the early part of the last century and it was where Georgia O'Keeffe summered for years. She loved the place and painted its rocks and mesas and scenery over and over and over.
The ranch is now a conference center, but the ranch buildings are still there and the dining hall, and there's a stable of horses for conference attendees or day visitors like us to take trail rides into the hills.
Anyone who knows me knows I am a lifelong committed Dude. Off and on over the years my family has gone to a dude ranch in Wyoming and I always love every minute of it. I've never painted it, but like Georgia O'Keeffe I'll have my ashes spread on a hilltop at the ranch.
So it all felt familiar when we went to visit Ghost Ranch one day in June. Something about a dude ranch . . . it feels like home to me, even though the landscape here looks different than "my" ranch near Wyoming's Big Horn mountains.
Several buildings at the retreat center are small museums. One has dinosaur fossils, which continue to be found in the rock sediments at Ghost Ranch. Another museum houses ancient native items and it's a good overview of indigenous history.
And . . . in one small room there was an exhibit of photographs and clothing and tools and artifacts called Ladies of the Canyons.
"Ladies of the Canyons is an exhibit based on Lesley Poling-Kempes’ book of the same name that tells the true stories of remarkable women from the East Coast, among them Ghost Ranch founder Carol Bishop Stanley. She, along with a handful of other pioneering women, left the security and comforts of Victorian society and journeyed into the rugged terrain of the American Southwest in search of discovering their individual potential within the rapidly changing world of the early 1900’s."
Pampered ladies pioneering in the west!
Remarkable women! Dudes, even!
East coast transplants in rough terrain!!
I could totally relate to it and was fascinated by this exhibit. Jim quickly wandered away, but I spent 40 minutes examining everything.
 |
| Click to read the rather enthusiastic book description |
We didn't take a horseback trail ride on our visit, we weren't dressed for it. There is a bus tour that drives around and narrates Georgia O'Keeffe's story and the landscape, but we'll do that another day. Out in one meadow there is a team building challenge site for groups -- an obstacle course -- that looks out of place.
They hold weddings at the ranch, and there was a youth group attending a conference the day we were there, with a friendly man in a golf cart zipping around ferrying people to the dining hall. So the place feels institutional and awfully touristy.
But at heart it's a dude ranch surrounded by rugged scenery and this east coast lady will always be there for that.
Comments