The woods of New Mexico

Having just come from the big city of Tokyo, I really needed some time to relax and stroll in the woods of New Mexico and enjoy the wide open spaces and blue skies of this state. I originally wasn't going to post these images but I decided to do it to show the world that NM does indeed have trees and forests. (Not just desert!)

These photos were taken on the east side of the Sandia mountains that are right next to Albuquerque. The west side of the Sandias faces Albuquerque and is much drier and has mostly desert vegetation. Basically all the rain, snow, and moisture in general gets dumped on the east side so that the west side gets nothing. I think the technical term for this phenomenon is called the "shadow zone". Our "shadow zone" being the east side.