2016 Western Trip – Days 53-54 – Santa Fe & Taos

The day after a six hour drive and setting up camp, I usually just want to hang around Sweetie and relax and since it was football Saturday, that made it easy.  There weren’t really any games on early that interested me so we drove into Santa Fe to see where the farmers market was located and pick up some groceries.  The campground owner advised that this was Santa Fe Fiesta weekend and the plaza area would be packed so we decided to wait until it was over to visit that area.

On Sunday, the weather forecast was for warm and sunny so we decided it would be a good day to head up into the mountains for  a visit to Taos and the ski valley.  Sometime back in the 90’s we came to Taos for a week of skiing and looked forward to a summertime re-visit and Mexican lunch.

The drive up NM-68 took us through about 15 miles of the Rio Grande Gorge then we drove up above the valley to get this view of the vast valley and the gorge (not sure why the entire area was so hazy).

I didn’t realize there was a Rio Grande Gorge, but here is a shot from the web of the bridge northwest of town.

We drove on up to the ski resort and as expected there was very little going on in the small base area.

We drove on up on the mountain, past many nice homes and arrived at the Bavarian Restaurant which is accessable in winter with a 4-wheel drive or from the slopes.  We considered eating lunch there but had our minds set on Mexican.

We then headed back down to Taos for lunch at Orlando’s which was rated #4 of 96 restaurants in the area by Trip Advisor.  As it turned out the place is kind of a dive (our kind of place) with both inside and patio seating.

The cooking area was about the same size as we have in the RV and the one hole unisex bathroom requires going through the kitchen.  It is about as deep as it is wide.

Bev had chicken fajita’s (no shot), Pat had the chimichanga, and I had chile rellenos with green chile sauce all were sided with posole and pinto beans.

All of the food was very good but we could tell we were not in East Tennessee as the heat level of eveything was a couple of notches higher.

From there, I dropped the girls off at the plaza while the dogs and I went to the car wash.  They shopped a while and I ended up with a new T-shirt (my woman takes good care of me).

Taos is known for it’s artsy community but since we are not into that we took a pass.  It was a good day trip and nice to visit the area again after 20+ years.

Photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

9/10 – 9/11/16 event date