A season of beckoning trails

Snowfall in Santa Fe, today's #watercolor card

Holidays are seasons of traveling, in distances and memories, down old trails in our lives.
America, and Oklahoma, is a country of trails, and most of the old ones have been forgotten or paved over, but they still exist.
You can think of many...Trail of Tears, Chisholm Trail,  Santa Fe Trail, Route 66. Go to another section of the country and there will be others...The Natchez Trace, El Camino Real....
The Palace of the Governors at the end of the Santa Fe Trail in New Mexico, on the plaza, always beckons me. When there I have to walk down the long portico where Native Americans are selling their art. It seems always crowded with tourists.
But not at night. Then you can sense the almost haunting, definite magical 400-year-old history of Santa Fe. Especially after a snowstorm.
I took the photo below one Thanksgiving about 10 years ago, the inspiration for today's watercolor, though I painted from memory, what I feel, knowing it is not architecturally precise. That's not what matters when trails beckon emotionally.
For an earlier blog post and photos about the Santa Fe Trail from 2010, click "Santa Fe Trailings."