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Published: December 29th 2010
I reached the conclusion that New Mexico is one of the prettiest states in the nation because of its diverse landscape. Of course Oregon has oceans, mountains, high desert and valleys, so it still wins “Most Beautiful State” in the award show of my mind, but New Mexico is definitely a close runner-up. (Just wait, New Mexico: one day all the polar ice caps will melt and you, too, will have an ocean.) Today we drove from Santa Fe to the Rio Grande Gorge, then Taos and down the High Road through Chimayo (a more than a dozen other pueblos) back to Santa Fe. It was a gorgeous drive, and although the weather forecast threatened snow we enjoyed a lovely day and numerous sunbreaks.
The Rio Grande Gorge starts south of Taos – at least that’s where the visitors’ center is located and we were able to pull over and take some pictures of the quiet river moseying on toward its final destination. Our destination that morning was the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge, designated as the most beautiful steel bridge in the nation in 1966. Its claim to fame now is that several movies (such as Terminator Salvation and Twins,
I think – movies I haven’t seen) have been filmed here at the fifth highest bridge in the U.S. For me, this bridge will forever be known as “the bridge I crossed while hyperventilating and believing I was going to die at any moment.” I don’t do heights. But the view was magnificent. And Matthew was thrilled to have an opportunity to take so many scenery shots in the hopes that at least one would turn into something desktop-worthy. (I think his wish was granted!) The gorge was beautiful and in my mind more awe-inspiring than the Grand Canyon (but perhaps my view of the Canyon is skewed because I saw it at 6AM after driving for 24 hours). I like scenes that include water, greenery, and mountains with snow and so the view of the landscape surrounding the bridge and gorge was near-perfection.
Taos is located about seven miles away from the bridge, and the town was…a ski town. I have no idea if that means the same to others, but in my mind images of towns built around winter sports are dingy, touristy, expensive, and dirty. I think that pretty much describes Taos. It has a ski
area about 20 miles outside of town, and the Taos Pueblo, which is a World Heritage site, is about a mile away. We chose not to see the Taos Pueblo – or any other pueblo for that matter – because most charge a per-person fee plus a fee for each camera and they are allowed to confiscate cell phones if they see them. Needless to say, it did not sound like a very tourist-friendly place, and my desire to see the pueblo did not match my desire to do something else with $26. Instead, we stuck to walking Taos, driving through gorgeous country, and stopping occasionally at little churches to take pictures. It was a good choice.
In Taos we decided to have lunch at a little tiny diner called Ricky’s. This was without a doubt a great choice – we had our big meal early in the day, and the food was great, served by Ricky himself. Ricky loves the Broncos and Jesus, as the décor within the diner will attest, and he loves serving simple food as cheap eats to families who want hearty fare but are budget conscious. Matthew had one of the day’s specials, an
“Indian Taco,” which was basically Indian fry bread stuffed with meat and cheese and onions and smothered in red chile sauce, lettuce, tomatoes, and guacamole. I had a “chalupita,” which is close to what our Tex-Mex places serve as a tostada, again smothered in plenty of good things. The lunch was served with four sopapillas, my favorite part of New Mexican food: fried bread with honey. It’s probably a good thing that we’re only here a few days otherwise I am pretty sure that I would gain about 20 pounds here. We had to eat everything – waste not, want not, right? – and then took a bit of a walk around the town before hopping in the car again.
Our first stop outside of Taos was the St. Francisco de Asis Mission Church. This church has had more artistic renderings of its beauty than any other church in America. In fact, the church was instantly recognizable to us because during our last trip to New Mexico Matthew and I bought a print by a local artist in which he depicted this church. It hangs in our entry, so we see it multiple times a day. The church was
just as beautiful in person, especially since it was decorated for the holidays. After taking a few pictures and popping into the gift shop, we were back on the road. I worried about making it to Chimayo before dusk.
As it turns out, I was right to be a bit concerned about the time it would take us to get to Chimayo, and Google was right to offer an alternate route as its suggestions for arriving in the little pueblo. In order to get there from Taos we took the High Road, which is lauded as one of the most scenic drives New Mexico has to offer. There is no doubt in my mind that this is true. I never knew that portions of New Mexico could look like Oregon on the drive between the Valley and Bend, and so today was surprising. The mountain range and snow stretched for miles and we saw large trees similar to those back home – we even spotted a few poplars! The one downside to this road is that its speed limit was 40mph the whole way – except when it dropped to 25 as we drove through pueblos. This made the
journey very long. But at least we had pretty things to look at while driving!
Our plan was to go to Santa Cruz Lake, just a few miles outside of Chimayo, on our way into the pueblo. According to the map we just had to turn onto a county road for a few miles and we’d arrive at a beautiful lake suitable for a few more scenery pictures. Unfortunately, sometimes New Mexico’s idea of “county road” matches my idea of “a country farmer’s very long driveway.” Matthew didn’t even think that it was actually the road, but I assured him it was – and we both decided that the lake wasn’t worth it, so we turned around and headed into Chimayo.
Sacred dirt, healing dirt, is what draws people to this small pueblo. Legend has it that the dirt has healing properties and the lame can come here to pray and be healed. That legend has given rise to a small tourist industry around several beautiful chapels. After walking the grounds, which are so quiet because this is one of the few places where tourists feel the need to observe respectful etiquette, we walked into a little shop
that held curios and Chimayo’s other claim to fame: heirloom chile peppers. Raymond, the clerk, was very talkative. It was through Raymond that we learned that even though every tourist book says to order food “Christmas style” (red & green sauce) when here, that is not traditional because real chile farmers know that “red and green combined makes brown and that’s mud.” He’s right. After trying the red powders he had us try green chile powder: they don’t mix. I’ll know better now! And now we have supplies for cooking plus a tiny cookbook by a local author, so I can hardly wait to get home and start cooking. (Of course I told Matthew that maybe I shouldn’t do that because if we continue eating like we have been we will both be the size of a large house.)
Our original plan for this evening was to return to Marble Tab Brewery so that Matthew could have their reserve beer one more time before we returned home, but we stopped by Whole Foods first to look for a New Mexican wine. A word to the wise: Whole Foods is CRAZY-busy just after 5PM here. And a couple buying wine,
Lovely...
...perhaps it's a selling point.beer, coconut juice and a personal container of ice cream is no match for the crowds who’ve brought their own canvas bags for their vegetables that are, of course, lovingly placed individually on the conveyor belt without plastic bags that could harm the environment. But we gallantly stood our ground because we found that although New Mexican wine was too expensive, Marble Tap actually bottled their reserve beer in a 22 so that we could buy that (along with our few other items) and not have to venture out tonight. It had been a long, but good, day.
(Side note: I never thought that I was a wine snob because I love wine of all sorts and I drink just about anything. Tonight proved me wrong. An Oregonian – at least this Oregonian – refuses to pay $12-18 for a “red wine” that not only has a cheesy label, it also refuses to list the varietals that go into this nameless “red” and it does not carry a vintage year. I’ll stick with my Trader Joe’s under-$4-reserve merlot, thank you very much. Even Matthew has vintage and variety in his wines! Sheesh…)
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