Thursday, June 18, 2015

A visit with friends, the High Road to Taos and other day trips..

Some of our New Mexico experiences the last several days include:

A visit with Esta and Joel of Hit N The Road.  We did some sightseeing, visiting and of course trying out some good restaurants.  Esta wrote a nice blog post about our visit here.  Click on the link to their blog to see more pictures.
We hope our travel paths will cross again one day so we can share those "funny, interesting and not-so-funny-at-the-moment" travel stories.

We drove up to Hyde State Park to enjoy the views of Santa Fe and the valley below. 
  
We also took a walk over the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge west of Taos.  The view of the river and gorge below is breathtaking.


We could see the river rafters enjoying the rapids below.



Ron and I drove the High Road To Taos on this day trip.  The views on this section are just as stunning as the views on the Low Road To Taos.   
A smaller portion of this drive is desert.  Other highway sections are forested and located in higher elevation.


On this visit to Taos, we decided to go up Hwy 150, to visit the Taos Ski Valley.  The change in landscape and climate from Taos was striking.  Here we saw heavily forested mountain terrain and temperatures of 68 degrees. Elevation was 10,000 feet here compared to Taos, which is about 7,000 feet.
Ronnie is looking at the ski lift traveling through the snow capped peak.


All that driving and sightseeing made Ron and me thirsty again.  Earlier in the week, on our trip to Taos with Esta and Joel, we had driven by the Taos Mesa Brewery.  We made a mental note to check the place out one day and this seemed to be a good opportunity.  We happen to get there during their Happy Hour, yes.. it was the perfect ending to a great day.

Ron selected the KNCE IPA and I chose the Wheeler Peak Wheat.



We also have taken a drive on a section of the Turquoise Trail, seeing Cerrillos Hills State Park and the community of Madrid.




We enjoyed another picnic at the Abiquiu Lake and Dam.
View of Flint Mountain, also known as Cerro Pedernal. Georgia O'Keeffe painted this mountain several times too. 
Traveling through the Georgia O'Keeffe "Red Rock" country.

..and a drive through the Ghost Ranch compound. Our interest was to see up close some of the landscapes Georgia O'Keeffe painted during her month stay here.

  I wanted to stop by the Purple Adobe Lavender Farm.  It's also on Hwy 285 as the Ghost Ranch,  Abiquiui and the "Red Rock" country of Georgia O'Keeffe.
The lavender on the farm has just started to bloom.

More later..

1 comment:

  1. You have been visiting some of our favorite places! We'll have to check out that brewery next time through. It looks "refreshing" :)

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