Day 7: A whole day in New Mexico

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After we stayed Thursday night in Santa Rosa, we started after a nice breakfast in the nice motel and headed north. Already after a couple of miles we fell in love with New Mexico. The scenery... so much different than anything we know from Germany or South Carolina. A decision was make quickly that we want to spend more time here. OK, so exit the interstate I-25 (which we were heading north) and into the mountains. First stop in Las Vegas, NM. Get your picture of the "real" Las Vegas out of your head, the Las Vegas in NM is so much like a small town in Mexico, no tourists, but cute downtown area, a park, some small stores. We strolled around a little bit, and had a coffee in a small cafe, which is owned by a very nice old lady from Ohio.
But we had to leave and went further north towards Taos. The scenic drive brought us thru a forest mountain area. The name of the forest I forgot, but it was beautiful. Taos seemed touristy, so we only drove thru, because we had another destination: The Rio Grande Gorge, a 800 feet deep canyon. We had a beautiful view into the canyon from the Rio Grande Trail and also from the bridge that spans the canyon. A bit scary up there when a truck passed with high speed while we were right in the middle of the bridge. After that adventure we had a very good lunch and then had to leave again. We needed to make some more miles.
It took us another two hours to get back on I-25, but it was a beautiful drive. We decided to go all the way to Colorado Springs. We drove thru downtown, which was not too busy and had dinner there. Finding a hotel afterwards turned out to be quite difficult. After we stopped at 3 hotels they told us that they have the national gymnastics tournament in Colorado Springs with over 10,000 athletes. No wonder everything was booked full. So we decided to try a little outside, and yes, around midnight we found a small motel. No questions asked we stayed and hurried to our room, since it just started raining. Turned out the motel was crappy, dirty, and way too expensive for that. We didn't sleep very well in the smelly, dirty beds. The next morning we hurried out of there...

For pictures please check Regina's German speaking blog entries!

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