The Land of Enchantment

Northern New Mexico sits high on the western plateau, mostly above a mile in altitude.  And for some reason, the "high desert", as it's called, is much more colorful and interesting, at least to my eye, than its low counterparts, like the Mohave. There's more vegetation, and more color to the rocks and soil.  And of course, the temperature is much more pleasant in the summer.  We left Midge and John monday morning, and after a refueling stop at the nearest Starbucks, headed north to Santa Fe -- only a short hour away.

But it took us an additional hour or more to find our campground once we got off I25, because our GPS led us unerringly to an empty field.  After a few additional failed navigation attempts we called  the campground office and talked to a very friendly woman (everyone in RV-land is very friendly) who couldn't figure out where we were either, and wasn't all that good at directions.  We finally discovered that we were over a mile away from Rancheros de Santa Fe.  Go figure.  After our little contretemps in Nashville, I was beginning to wonder if that golden voice was really an evil trickster.   Maybe I just need to update the map data in the GPS, who knows.

Anyway, having finally checked in at the Ranchero, we made our way to "downtown" Santa Fe, where I executed a spectacular parallel parking tour de force in a shady spot right in the center of town.  This piece of good luck nicely balanced our earlier bad luck with the GPS, and brightened the day considerably.  After living in the Enterprise for 10 days or so, I think I now know what living in a closet must be like, except that there's no picnic table outside the closet door. But the tradeoff is that you can actually park it like a car, almost.

The problem with having taken the previous day off with Midge and John now manifested itself.   Almost all the Santa Fe museums are closed on Monday.  But -- good luck again -- the Georgia O'Keeffe museum was open.  We spent an enjoyable few hours looking at some of her beautiful works, and then repaired to the excellent Cafe Pasqual's, which by yet another bit of luck, was half a block from the parallel-parked Enterprise.

The next morning we set out on the Taos Scenic Loop:  The "high road" out, and it was definitely high, not to mention narrow and winding, and then the "low road" back.  The Enterprise has a "tiptronic" automatic transmission, which I thought was a pure frill until we were descending a particularly steep, narrow, and winding section of the high road.  I was able to downshift and use compression braking, which was a very good move, seeing as how the vehicle weighs in at a hefty 9,000 lbs.

It was a scenic and interesting day, with the cultural highpoint being a visit to the Taos Pueblo, a World Heritage Site.  And then, as we turned a corner wandering through Taos, what to our wondering eyes should appear, but a Nambe store and eight beautiful place-settings on sale. Happy Birthday Cherie!