This is where Georgia lived

A closeup look at Georgia O'Keeffe's third- floor hideaway, room 301. It's the only room that occupies a third-floor perch. The cost is only about $40 more per night than what I'm paying, and the next time I ever stay here, it will be THAT room! It has quite the history and mystique about it.

I'm going to Santa Fe on Sunday to spend the night there, to see her museum. Ansel Adams is joining her for a double retrospective.

I can hardly wait . . .

The Sagebrush Inn

Every- thing is made of adobe here, or at least looks a lot like adobe. The Sagebrush Inn is really quite beautiful. . . and you gotta love all the aromatic sagebrush. Georgia O'Keeffe spent something like 6 months at this very place back in the 1930s, and painted here. It's a VERY peaceful, quiet place, and I highly recommend it for anyone thinking of visiting Taos. The only downside is that it's a couple of miles away from the Taos Plaza, the main part of town with all the shops, restaurants and museums.

On the other hand, maybe that's why this adobe gem is so peaceful and quiet. . .

I can see forever . . .

From the D.H. Lawrence Ranch you can almost see forever. It's up in the hills somewhere, and although most of the views from the cabin are peek-a-boo through the trees, the drive up offers many sweeping vistas. The ranch is open to the public, but you have to be special, like us, to get into D.H.'s cabin. It remains off limits, otherwise. So yesterday's tour through it was all the more appreciated.

Surrounded by big pine trees and low pinion bushes, it was unbelievably quiet and peaceful. It just might be the highlight of the trip, although there's more to see and do.

Stay tuned . . .

Lady Chatterly's Lover

The conference shuttle vans took a dozen of us to the D.H. Lawrence Ranch, a 45 minute drive from the Sagebrush Inn. This is where D.H. Lawrence lived for several months over the course of a couple of years back in the early 1920s. He worked on some of his novels there, and I got to touch his old typewriter on his old desk, in the cabin where he stayed. This is his bedroom and living room, too.

Georgia O'Keefe was also a visitor and painted a famous work of hers here--the big old tree in the front.

There's something magical about tromping about in the places where these luminaries once lived.

Taos Mountain Rules!

New Mexico skies change all day long - clear one minute, cloudy the next, then stormy, then lightening, plus thunder, then warm sprinkly rain, and back to beautiful blue again. Taos Mountain is the focal point of the town. You can't help but look at it, be drawn to it, every time you're out of doors. It's moody, it's friendly, it's what makes this place what it is.

I, for one, never get tired of it.

The Pueblo was a bust . . .

The conference people provide shuttle excursions for attendees to use some of their free time seeing the sites of Taos. We set out yesterday for Taos Pueblo, a World Heritage Site and one of the main draws here for countless visitors. Unfortunately, the Pueblo Indians closed it long enough for us to have to turn around to get back to the workshops. They had a funeral going on, and closed it to the public temporarily. It's famous for being continuously inhabited for more than 1,000 years. And the multi-storied adobe dwellings are extremely picturesque. So we came back to the Sagebrush Inn, where the conference is, and I took a walk around here, snapped a few photos, then checked my e-mail on the grassy courtyard, wi-fi style.

We're going to try for the pueblo again on Friday.

Hello, Taos!

I arrived in Taos, New Mexico, last Friday and met my friend Sally for dinner. She's the author of two published books already and wanted to take a workshop and meet with a publisher for her third book at the Taos Summer Writers Conference. I signed up for three workshops over nine days.

The first one last weekend was screenwriting, taught by a professor of screenwriting at the University of New Mexico. My current workshop for the week is intermediate novel writing with an accomplished novelist, Laura Dave. Next weekend will be about publishing, led by an editor who worked with the likes of Shirley MacLain, Clive Cussler, and Hunter S. Thompson. This guy's been around the block a few times.

To get the most out of this conference, I whipped up a synopsis, a couple of chapters, and an outline of a novel I'm working on and have thought about for a while. It's great fun to have total immersion with hundreds of like-minded folks here. And the advice is priceless from some very top-notch people in the field.

This, I must admit, was a great idea...