Each of our mornings here have begun in the same way. First we drink our tea and coffee sitting on our front porch…….
Then we move to the courtyard for a wonderful breakfast with a hot entrée, toast and gorgeous and tasty fruit……
This morning we had decided that we would drive to Taos to spend the day. When we told our Innkeeper, Gayle, about it, she said that we needed to take the “high road” up to Taos and then drive the “low road” back home again. She warned us that the high road would take about two hours to make the trip. Little did she know that we would stop umpteen times to take photos and visit small galleries and shops along the way. Total travel time…..over FOUR hours!!!!
BUT, we had a lot of fun!!! The scenery changed as we drove, starting out with low hills…..
…and emerging into beautiful mountains. This range is part of the Pecos Wilderness area and was where were planning to backpack….until the forest was closed because of fires and flash floods!!!!
Our first stop of the morning was in the town of Chimayo, which is highly known for its tapestries and weavings. Needless to say, we had to have a look.
We went into one gallery (Ortega’s Weaving Shop) and ended up buying a few woven blankets……
but really enjoyed watching the man weave in the back room. Notice how his feet get into the act as well. You could get a REALLY good aerobic workout doing this…..
We then drove a bit further down the road and arrived at the Santuario de Chimayo’, which has been a pilgrimage site for many years. The church is quaint……
…and the courtyard was really peaceful and filled with statues and icons…..
The fence surrounding the property was covered with crosses of all types and sizes, but I especially liked this piece of wood that was shaped like a cross…..
A little further down the road we saw a sign for Ojo Sarco pottery gallery and of course we had to check it out. We followed a long, mostly dirt, road to arrive at the gallery. It held some gorgeous work…..
….some of which found its way into our car!!!
We finally made it into Taos and stopped for lunch at the Dragonfly Café. They served interesting, organic dishes and we loved sitting outside in the courtyard and watching the people walking around. We are noticing a definite trend in the visitors to this area. Most tourists are our age or older and all seem to be dressed in a type of uniform, including hats, long sleeve shirts, and capris or long skirts for women, or khakis and sandals for the men.
Next on the agenda was to visit the Taos Pueblo. These homes are estimated to be approximately 1,000 years old and sit in the middle of a 95,000 acre Indian reservation site.
The houses were all made from Adobe which is a mixture of mud and straw. You could see the straw bits sticking up thru the mud…..
Many of the houses had small outdoor ovens and all had the requisite turquoise accents……
Most of the houses were built on several levels with ladders connecting them…….
There were two sets of structures, with the Red Willow Creek running peacefully between them…..
Can you believe how blue the sky is?????
Many of the structures were filled with shops run by native Artisans. We enjoyed talking with them and learning about their crafts.
As we were leaving the reservation, we came upon a favorite site….a Prairie Dog town. This brought back wonderful memories of feeding carrot chunks to the Prairie Dogs outside of Lubbock. They are SO cute……
We returned to the Plaza area of Taos and walked thru several shops. When we came to the Baumann galleries, we enjoyed watching Stephen paint for a while…
….and then saw this wonderful painting……
Unfortunately, we couldn’t figure out exactly where it would go in our house, so we reluctantly left it hanging on the wall!!! More to come on that subject…..
On the drive back to Santa Fe, we took the “Low road” which ran along the Rio Grande River. It was amazing how different the scenery was!!! The mountain side of the road was craggy, rocky and very interesting to look at……
We found a bridge over the river that we wanted to cross, but, unfortunately it was impassable…..
The scenery as we were driving back into Santa Fe was so beautiful……
One thought on “The High Road to Taos”
Loving these posts! I hope you show us your purchases when you get back home!