New Mexico

Georgia O’Keeffe traveled and painted all over the world, but for much of her life, the high desert of northern New Mexico was her home. Her paintings of the sculpted badlands, adobe structures, and mountains north of Santa Fe solidified her reputation as one of the 20th century’s most influential artists.

The road to the village of Chimayo winds through the foothills of New Mexico’s Sangre de Cristo Mountains. It’s usually a quiet highway, linking this slow-paced village of adobe houses and rickety toolsheds with the city of Santa Fe 30 miles to the south.

Juan De La Roca was ready to leave Colorado behind. For 25 years, he’d lived, worked, and played in the mountains around Denver and Boulder. But the state’s booming growth was driving up housing prices and snarling traffic, and the once-lonesome trails where De La Roca rode his bike were getting crowded.