Art, Hiking, and Autumn

Allyson had a friend over for a sleepover Thursday night (Friday was the kids' Fall Break), so we took a holiday Friday to play. After a lazy morning, we went out for lunch. Then we went to our main destination, the city's Open Space Visitors Center. This facility at the edge of the bosque is a great place to visit in the fall, when the leaves turn, the air is crisp (although our visit was quite warm), and, in a month or so, the migrating cranes arrive.

Our main goal this time, however, was not the building, but the hiking trails that run through the bosque. The city has installed some landscape art along the way, and we wanted to check it out.

We hiked a for a mile or so and saw about five such pieces. The first few are simple poles, adorned with natural materials local to the bosque--leaves, branches, and such. Another piece was a a reclaimed jetty jack (used for flood control, and, I guess, to make the bosque look like a war zone). There are a few more that we didn't catch, but it was fun to view art and hike, all at the same time.

After returning the visitors center we rested a bit and then went up to the roof. The view from there is great; you can see the mountains in the distance, the bosque gradually yellowing in the autumn, and the field across the way, where before long a few hundred cranes will spend the winter.

Here are some pictures from the outing:

The outside of the visitors center--itself a cool building:

On the hike, the first of the poles:And Isaac with a piece called "The Cube." A Cottonwood trunk surrounded by wire, it represents the urban space of the modern city built around the natural space of the river:A bosque Cottonwood with the Sandias in the background:The boys at the "Tree of Life" sculpture:The view from the roof: