After such a fabulous day, it is impossible for us to not be in love with Taos. The only downside about our time in New Mexico is that there hasn’t been enough. But we think that we were able to cover a lot of ground in our short time.
We woke up after an INCREDIBLE sleep at India’s and wandered down to the town plaza. We checked out the cute shops in Taos, including an amazing greeting card store. As anyone can imagine, Meredyth basically had to pry Ashley away from this store because she could have spent the whole day there reading funny greeting cards.We were even pleasantly surprised to see that they even had coming out cards! How different is that?! In all Ashley’s numerous hours spent looking at cards, even she’s never come across these before.
Next, we went on an incredible horseback ride!!!! Definitely one of the highlights of the trip. Ashley rode Patches, a cute little paint and Meredyth road Santana, an appaloosa with definitely the appaloosa attitude.As we were driving into Taos, the idea hit us that riding would be an amazing way to see some of the spectacular flora and fauna of Taos that we would not be able to see on foot. So we called a couple places first thing in the morning and booked ourselves an hour long trail ride. It was just the two of us at this place about 10 miles outside of Taos. The lady who took us was pretty amusing – the typical horse person who called things like she saw them, and she greatly educated us about all the geology and history of the area, which we had many questions about. Once Meredyth got a little more comfortable steering with one hand, she had a fabulous time.Some of the interesting facts and thing we learned/ saw: there was lots of mica in the sand, which we learned is found in make up; there was amazing smelling sage brush everywhere; in the 70s, squatters were kicked out of the area we rode in and it became a national preserve. Jane and Janice – you and your girls should look into doing a ride out West in NM, CO, etc. It would be a blast.
After the ride, we went back into town and grabbed lunch at this café. On the way, we stopped at this little area that had a few shops and an old Puelbo church. One of the shops we went into was this little trading post. The old man inside talked to us for quite a while, informing us about lots of history. This particular trading post may not be the largest in the US, but it is the oldest. Also, he told us about how the US needs to rewrite their history books because settlements out there are way older than the Jamestown, Plymouth, and all the ones back East (way to go Karen for teaching Ashley bad US history…). He also showed us a picture of the “new baby” and, much to our surprise, proceeded to pull out a picture of a newborn leaf nose bat. He then told us how his youngest daughter is getting her PhD at UC Riverside studying microbiology and some other thing we had never heard of and she was doing research with these bats, among other things. She is looking for a cure for this disease that you can get from dust that kills you instantly. Good thing there are people looking for cures for these types of things. He also told us about how he was particularly proud of this daughter who was the youngest of his “six youngsters” and 6 months after she was born, her mom died of cancer. It is amazing what people tell you and how sometimes people just need someone to talk to. It was definitely an interesting pit stop. One of the greatest things about this trip is talking to and hearing little parts of random people’s lives. We talked for a while after this about how it is interesting what people decide to share with others, particular complete strangers.
Next, we wanted to go on this hike that Terri recommended up in the ski valley to William’s lake. Unfortunately it was getting late and she told us that it was too late to do it. We went up to look in awe at the ski valley anyway and it was stunning. We hiked about an hour of the trail but were not able to get all the way there because we were afraid the sun was going to set. Also, we wanted to see the gorge bridge! So we made our way out to the amazing gorge to walk out on the bridge that crosses it. We think we remember being told that this is the second tallest bridge in North America (but don’t quote us) and it was definitely a great end to the day’s adventures. It was a little crazy to stand above the gorge. We were in such awe over this gorge, we can only imagine how we are going to feel once we get to the Grand Canyon!
After such an epic day and knowing we would be getting up bright and early again the next day, we decided to grab something from the grocery store for dinner and food for the epic drive the next day. We did this and headed back to India’s to relax. Meredyth made some brownies that were quite…an experiment. But as always, they tasted great, although they got a little stuck to the tin foil. We are always astounded at how properly undercooking brownies (no, this is not an oxymoron) never fails to make them fabulous. But the best part of the evening was sitting in the hot tub talking about life and gazing at the Milky Way. Even though you would think we would run out of things to talk about after living together for the past five years and spending 15 days together, we don’t. Our biggest question was if/ how India would have us physically removed from her property if we never left. In other news, we saw several shooting stars. Being in the middle of nowhere, in complete darkness without light pollution has a special way of making us both speechless. There are few things more relaxing than looking at the stars. And few things that make you feel so peaceful and feel as though everything is and will forever be okay. It was the perfect end to our time in New Mexico.
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