Day 4 – we are somewhere near Santa Fe

It’s still Summer here, with temperatures ranging anywhere from 27 to 32 C, depending on our elevation. These parts of Northern New Mexico do see Winter, the state is notorious for blizzards, but there will be no snow for a while yet, Oh no! The forecast for the next few days is for more Mr Sun and more heat (temperatures of 32 – 35 C), especially as we drop down into the Chihuahuan Desert closer to Old Mexico.

Tonight we are in Santa Fe, or to be more precise, about 10 miles from Santa Fe off the I-25 at a KOA in the Pinyon / Juniper woodlands. From where I sit I can hear a dove somewhere not far from here. We are cooking hot dogs on the Coleman Stove, one Nespresso has gone down and there’s another in the YETI Cup! It’s 26 Celsius. Yeah man, life is goooood!

We began our day in Taos, at the crack of 8 am. Hey, sleep was needed okay. Our first stop was Taos Pueblo, what you see above. I am not sure how best to put it but walking around here – it’s inspiring, it’s humbling, it’s well, all that and then some! Very, very awesome! Next stop, Taos Town Plaza, which dates back to 1796. The buildings themselves that we see date to the 1930’s but the plaza itself is in the original location of when the town had its beginnings. The Plaza itself is filled with coffee shops (decent quality), art galleries, a hat shop (which was closed for fuck sakes), jewellery shops as well as novelty shit. There was also a man who I am not quite sure what he was doing, throwing out Samurai moves, waving and thanking an imaginary crowd and maybe doing a patrol to make sure the Plaza was safe. Bodhi and I were very impressed by his flexibility. There was also a dude wearing an actual skirt – okay, don’t get pissy with me here, I am only mentioning it because well, it’s not something I see every day. Is this a thing now?

Before leaving Taos, a quick stop was made at Albertsons to stock up with groceries followed by a viewing of the San Francisco de Asis Church (the most painted and photographed church in New Mexico).

Now, the original plan was for us to make our way South to Los Alamos, the site of the Atom bomb going off but after reading about the High Road To Taos, we changed our plans. We decided to do this road, only in reverse, with an anticipation of seeing old Hispanic towns like we had passed through in Southern Colorado (San Luis – which I really should have stopped to photograph). It’s a bullshit marketing ploy by artists who live in these little villages to get rich people from the cities to come up country and buy their works. Sorry, I just wasn’t all that impressed. I would have enjoyed the desert along the Rio Grande more I think.

Tomorrow is busy. We are off first thing in the morning to Santa Rosa to get a look at the Blue Hole, then it’s off to Fort Sumner where Billy the Kid was shot (there’s a museum too) before ending the day in Roswell (yeah buddy – U… F… O…!) Rock on!!!