Well, it would have been 30 minutes away if I had gone the right way on 64. Idiot.
Just before we head up the mountain. You can see Elizabeth's fantastic little Mazda in the background.
I'm so cool. Aren't I so cool? I'm cool.
Right. So this is the view about halfway up the mountain, where the last picture was taken. (I'm cool.) If you zoom in on the pic (just click on it) you can see the road where we started at about 8000 ft.
And up to 10,000+ ft, into the clouds where we couldn't see much of anything.
So we took gooberific pictures of each other in our stylin' lids.
Isn't she cute?
After about 20 minutes or so, the clouds started to clear, giving us a 360 degree view of the surrounding mountains.
If you expand this picture, you can see the edge of Taos on the plateau in the distance, and might be able to just make out the Rio Grande Gorge. From here, we rode about another hour and a half back down the mountain before leaving Taos on the high road to Santa Fe.
On our way out of Taos we stopped at this old adobe church, built sometime between 1772 and 1816. No one really knows when.
Across the tiny parking lot was a building with a famous, and somewhat freaky painting of Jesus inside. Of course, no pictures allowed, so you'll have to believe me, or read for yourself.
Called the Shadow of the Cross, it's a painting of Jesus on the Sea of Galilee that, when viewed in the dark, shows him in silhouette with a silhouetted cross over his shoulder, and a halo on his head. While I was skeptical at first, the effect is very clearly visible, and after a short while your eyes start to play tricks on you and it gets kinda freaky.
From there we drove the high road to Santa Fe - very scenic and fun to drive - and stopped at a few different historic adobe churches along the way.
In Las Trampas, a tiny town established in 1751, the church of San Jose de Gracia was by far the largest building.
Turn around from exactly where the last picture was taken, and you see the Taste of Trampas. I was really disappointed it was closed.
So somewhere along the high road, the highway department decided it would be a good idea to tear up all the pavement for about a 5 mile stretch. No kidding. Nice, smooth, two-lane road, speed limit from 25-60 mph, and then it just turned into dirt. Awesome.
The next stop was the Santuario de Chimayo - an adobe church finished in 1816.
It was in a great location for its outdoor chapel -
very picturesque -
and was close to another rustic-looking little chapel,
adorned with even smaller chapels itself.
So cool!
From there we ended up missing one of the last turns in a day of poor direction decisions, badly marked, mis-marked, or unmarked roads, unpaved roads, really bad maps and horrible directions. But we eventually made it to Santa Fe in one piece. "Of course 75 branches off into 76! It's so obvious, we don't feel the need to mark it on any of or maps, roads, or note it in the guidebooks. Stupid tourist. You should know these things!"
After dropping of our stuff at the Adobe Abode B&B, we walked to get some food at the Cowgirl Hall of Fame BBQ and Grill. Not a bad place, really, but we were seated in the back, away from the wandering Mardi Gras band that livened up the place.
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