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Taos, New Mexico was our destination after leaving Colorado. The drive from Durango down to the border was one that I will not soon forget. Just smooth mountain driving, hardly meeting another car. Just perfect. Little did we realize we would cross the Rio Grande, but we had stopped at a rest area, and slowly realized there was a bridge. Then walked over to a fence and saw that there was a huge gorge. People were walking across the bridge taking pictures and just marveling at how deep it is. (Someone who saw my pictures actually asked if this was the Grand Canyon--I sort of laughed to myself. You can never mistake this little bitty thing with the Grand Canyon.)
We got to our motel, checked in and we were starving. We were directed to Taos Plaza, where we could park, but found it was tight, and it was meter parking. We found a free lot, and walked back. But Taos is unbelievable. All adobe buildings, even the McDonalds(and no arches), all up and down main street and beyond. This was so far removed from any place I'd ever been before.
The plaza was a square of various stores, a lot of nice jewelery, and gift shops, eating places. This picture was taken on a balcony at a restaurant where we enjoyed the best tacos plus a tomato and cucumber salad that tasted like a lime pie. While we waited for our meal the clouds were gathering and the wind came up. The clouds became really dark. I joked that I would do my non-rain dance. You know what? It worked.
Meanwhile an old gentleman, who used a walking stick came by, looked down at the street below, saying that the guy who pulled up in the Rolls Royce was someone famous, but he couldn't remember who he was. The Rolls was gold, and the steering wheel was on the right hand side. He went into the very posh jewelery/pottery place that I didn't even feel I had a right to step into.
Anyway the old man said he'd been coming there for 50 years, and he'd seen or met various famous people. Many movie stars, musicians, artists and so forth hang here, and it wasn't unusual to see someone strumming a guitar somewhere singing away, in and out of the plaza. He claimed to have met the artist Georgia O'Keef. I wanted to believe him. Why not? Artists set up shop in their own homes around the town, and plaza here, and if they're open you can go into their gallery which is usually part of their house. The houses are just beautiful. Usually there are the adobe walls which surround the yards, and always a wooden gate that may be as fancy as Tudors made of some carved wood. Just didn't have time to take many pictures. I wanted to stay another night, but our time-limits and money were tight.
Hope to return someday, and even go to Santa Fe, where we can see Georgia O'Keef museum and her home is there, I think too.
The next day we traveled down through some tight twisting turns down out of Taos and came across some place called Angel Fire. We could see this cloud hovering above the ground, and it's sort of weird because it's fog that has settled in this valley, and just hangs there thick and white, and as you drive down into it, the fog is about 25 feet above you for a while. The cool lake and hot sun must create this and causes this "angel fire", it looks spooky, like smoke. Strangest thing I've ever seen, unfortunately didn't get a picture of that either. Maybe next time.
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