Taos Travel Journal

Morning ladies! I've had a bit of a frustrating week in the blog department. I finished my Quilt of Valor and took some pictures to post. When I plugged the camera into the computer, I couldn't upload any pictures. All the pictures were gone from my memory card! I was so ticked!! Ummm... until I remembered that I was the one who had dropped the camera... on the patio... that would be the cement patio. Damn. I'll do some more experimenting this weekend and see if it's the camera or the memory card that has died.

Anyway... the QOV turned out very nice... especially after I RIPPED out the right side green stripe that somehow... it could be because math was involved... somehow turned out to be 1/2" too narrow. After correcting that small deficiency I was able to put it all together quite nicely. The backing is just a big rectangle of the lime green with blue borders and I think it compliments the front. Now to get it quilted! Hopefully my assigned long armer will be able to quilt it, if not, I'll give it a whirl myself.

On the CQ front, I did do a couple of the Take a Stitch Tuesday (TAST) stitches on a CQ block but since I can't post a picture... ppfffhhttt! ;0)

So... since I can't imagine a post without pictures, I thought I would take you on the promised little New Mexico trip this morning. When we went to Colorado in April, I got to thinking that, since we were taking two days to drive back to Phoenix, it would be a good time to take a side trip to Taos, New Mexico. Rain was forecast for the day of our trip home so I wasn't too sure it would be a good idea to take an unfamiliar mountain road in a downpour; however, by the time we were close to Taos the rain hadn't been a factor so I suggested going through Taos to Glenn. Wonder of wonders... the man agreed! You have to understand, Glenn does nothing without a plan. For him to agree to an unplanned sidetrip was truly amazing.

Anyway, we headed for Taos on Hiway 64 but before going too far along the road we were stopped by a flagger for a roadcrew that was laying some sorely needed new asphalt on the highway. We were the first vehicle in line so we were chatting with the flagger and she suggested (while gesturing to the other side of the road) we could take pictures while we were stopped...

of the buffalo! Very cool! Of course we've seen buffalo in Colorado, but to have them magically (at least it seemed magic) appear while stopped in the middle of the road was rather cool. She then suggested that if we looked to the right as we went farther down the road, we could see another herd on the other side of the road...

and so we did! What you can't see in this picture is that, off to the left is a red pickup loaded with feed that the buffalo were following... too funny... but still cool!

A little farther along and we took the turn into and through Cimarron. It's a tee tiny little town but just on the outskirts was a huge herd of elk! We went past them so fast I didn't get any pictures, unfortunately. Just past Cimarron we entered Cimarron Canyon State Park. This site has some great pictures of the area so I'll let you click through them. The road was full of switchbacks that moved ever higher through the forest, crossing and recrossing the river as we went. We came out on top of the canyon to some high (8500 ft) meadows that were breathtaking...

with the clouds settling down over the tops of the mountains.

We drove through the high basin around Angel Fire and then headed down into Taos. I had done some online hotel shopping the night before (just in case we actually did get there) and discovered the Historic Taos Inn. I'm a sucker for these historic places when we do this kind of getaway and luckily we found it right away. I didn't have directions or anything, didn't even remember what street it was on, but we turned the corner into Taos and there it was! Yay! We stayed in Room 303 (just click on the room on the hotel map) and it was lovely. We had dinner at Doc Martin's Restaurant and we sat in front of the window you see there. Wonderful service, fabulous food and great atmosphere.

Outside our room was a lovely courtyard presided over by a very serene lady...
and the daffodils were beautiful in the crisp morning air.

After breakfast (for me, just coffee for Glenn) we walked over to the Town Square just a short distance away.

It's full of galleries and shops selling New Mexico souvenirs. Since we were early there wasn't much open but some of the stores were and we were really just window shopping anyway (well, we did get a couple of books and a T-shirt). Isn't this gate beautiful?

On the way back to the Inn, we saw this gentlemen coming in for coffee and I just had to take a picture...

If you know anything about horses, you may think that this horse is about to... erm... fertilize the street; however, he was an Arabian and very excited to be there and I think he was just raring to DO SOMETHING!

We headed south out of Taos and we could see for miles out over the valley below...



That deep canyon you see in the center of the above picture is the Rio Grande River Valley. We headed down towards Santa Fe along the river and were surprised to find some beautiful farms and orchards south of Valverde.

Pretty soon the two lane road turned into a freeway and we were back in "civilization."

I think we'll be returning to Taos, the Rio Grande River Valley and the Cimarron Canyon and spending some quality time there in the future. It was a beautiful side trip and I'm soooo glad we went! Hope you enjoyed my little Taos Travel Journal!

Hopefully I'll have some quilty pictures by Monday!