It was our first day without our beloved truck. The Camry we rented yesterday seems tiny compared to our Charlotte. We had no items on the agenda so we chose to do some exploring north of Santa Fe.
Our first destination we selected was the former hippie commune and artist community called Taos. The roads we traveled (US-84 and NM-68) follow the Rio Grande and the Rio Pueblo de Taos through some spectacular canyons before topping a hill southwest of town. From the road the massive gorge of the upper Rio Grande can be seen to the north and it is a gigantic crack in the earth extending many miles to the horizon.
We drove down the main drag of Taos (all 2 lanes) through many southwestern style buildings, quite a few of them vacant. Back in the day, Taos was a famous for the arty crowd but it seems either the artists ran out of money or folks quit liking their art because many of the downtown commercial buildings are for lease. We stopped in Taos for some lunch food from Michael’s Kitchen and took our to-go stuff up the road about another 10 miles to a gorgeous concrete and steel bridge spanning the very deep Rio Grande Gorge. It is a very long way from the bridge deck to the river below. We pulled out in a rest area at the east end of the bridge and took our grub into a very nice shade structure with a dining table and great views of the Gorge, the Rio Grande and surrounding snow-covered mountains.
We continued west and south back to US-284 on our return trip to Santa Fe. The terrain we passed through today was breathtaking but the Camry we rented is miserable to ride in compared to Charlotte. The Camry steers well, has plenty of grunt and ample bells and whistles but it rides like a asphalt roller and the seats are like sitting in a bucket. I already miss Charlotte.
There are some pix of today’s travels you can see if you click here