High Road from Taos

After all of the excitement of our Tuesday, Wednesday started as a bit of a letdown.

We slept late...I didn't get up and out of bed until after 10:30. And, in Albuquerque, if you haven't taken care of errands or gone places by early afternoon, you're screwed because the sun starts to reach out and beat you down.

After a slow start, we went to the Golden Crown Panaderia, where we picked up a loaf of green chile bread (spicy!!), a sweet potato empanada (for me), and a few cappucino biscochitos (also for me). Biscochitos are the official cookies of New Mexico...how many states have official cookies? Here's a shot of the bakery:



Although the bakery trip was exciting, it wasn't enough to keep our spirits up. The afternoon kind of sucked. I sat on the futon and finished a baby burp cloth (I'm making a set of 3 for a co-worker). After that, I kind of just walked around the apartment and became depressed as the sun beat down mercilessly outside and the apartment became warmer. Just as I was settling in the hot bedroom alcove, Porkchop suggested that we drive up to Santa Fe and spend the night, instead of just a day trip on Thursday.

It didn't take much to convince me.

Thanks to Hotwire, we got a room in a little bed and breakfast located just a couple of blocks off the Plaza. Even though the bed would prove problematic later (I learned that I absolutely hate pillowtop mattresses), the place was great.

After putting our things away in our room, we went to eat at the Plaza Cafe. So good! In my opinion, the best meal of the trip so far. I had the cashew mole enchilada, which came with sopaipillas. The sopaipillas....oh my gosh, SO GOOD!!!! After the basket was set down on our table, I tore into mine before Porkchop could take a picture. So here I am chewing on one:



I only wish we had saved room for a Mexican hot chocolate and a sopaipilla sundae. Next time!

After dinner, we walked around the plaza and looked in the windows of expensive touristy places. We also sat on a bench, enjoying the cool breeze and the live music. After a little bit, we retreated to our room and settled in for a night of...CABLE TV! The Daily Show, the Colbert Report, HGTV! Jon Stewart is my favorite, and the only thing I miss about cable TV. Well, I guess I would miss all of the home buying/selling/renovating shows on HGTV, but I've never had that station before.

Unfortunately, the night was restless and uncomfortable for both of us and we received little sleep. So, the continental breakfast came mighty early. At breakfast, I picked up what I thought was guava juice, but of course it turned out to be grapefruit juice (ack, the horror!). Porkchop poured a glass of what looked like cranberry juice, but it tasted more like sangria.

Despite our beverage mistakes, we made it to the Institute of American Indian Arts Museum before they opened. The Norval Morrisseau exhibition was pretty neat. Here I am outside of the museum:



Our other touristy stop was the Loretto Chapel to see the crazy staircase.



We enjoyed lunch made by street vendors on the plaza and then decided to head up to Taos. On the road there, we enjoyed scenery like this:



Okay, so we actually decided to skip Taos and head directly to Arroyo Seco, about 4 miles north of Taos. What a great little town! And I do mean little. And not crowded with tourists (we might have been the only ones).

We stopped at Taos Sunflower, a yarn shop with a selection that definitely rivaled, if not outdid, my LYS. I so wanted to buy some of their handspun stuff, shown here:



But it was a little bit too crazy for me. I really couldn't imagine making anything with it. So, instead, I bought two skeins of Malabrigo lace weight in Stonechat.

The yarn shop was across the street from Taos Cow. You know I can't pass up locally made ice cream, so we went in for a waffle cone. I thought I might try a scoop of lavender with some chocolate, but the lavender was too flowery for me, so we shared a scoop of Holstein Sunrise instead. Yum! Strawberry ice cream (you know, with big chunks of real berries) with chunks of milk, dark, and white chocolate.

We then tried to stop and poke around Taos some, but it was just too difficult. The traffic, the tourists....ugh. We decided it was time to head back to Albuquerque.

Porkchop humored me and agreed to take the High Road (aka the Mountain Road or the King's Road) back to Santa Fe. There was a whole section in our guidebook about this road, but the author never specifically states exactly which roads make up this "High Road." So I had to piece it together using references to road numbers in various sections and our crappy, non-detailed map that came with the book.

It was an adventure!

The road was interesting, but long. We saw lots of pretty pretty scenery like this:



We also drove down lots of little, curvy roads that went through tiny settlements. If we were hoping to stop and buy weavings or pottery or have lunch at a little cafe, it would have been great. Unfortunately, I think Porkchop's driving patience was wearing thin.

Anyway, we made it back to the bigger road outside of Santa Fe and then onto Albuquerque.

Being a bit burnt out on chiles and cheese and stuff like that, we ate at a little fast food Japanese place. Yay for bento boxes!

I'm not sure what we're doing tomorrow (besides going to see Superbad), but on Saturday, we're definitely going to the gay rodeo. Oh, yeah!