Touting Taos

We just took a lovely family vacation to Taos, a quick weekend trip. I'm glad Jamie convinced me to do this; he's been itching to go somewhere, and I was hesitant since we already have like 4 major vacations planned in the next 12 months. The drive to Taos is spectacular, nothing like those miserable drives thru Texas where it takes you 8 hours to leave the state and (most) everything looks dull dull dull.

We've done the drive towards Santa Fe a few times for hiking, but never north of Santa Fe through the Espanola valley. The road follows the Rio Grande, which cuts thru the mountains. There's all kinds of little wineries and farm stands set up along the way. We stopped for an unimpressive lunch at the Taoseno, which I swear hasn't been touched since it was built in the 70's, and has food bland enough for a retirement home. But the people where friendly, and local. We walked around the Plaza some, and then we found The Store.

It's a toy store, called Twirl, and if you ever go to Taos with kids, you HAVE to stop in. It's easily the coolest store I've ever been in. It tops E. Dehillerin in Paris, and that's saying something. I saw the grotto and koi pond first. They're inside, have little elves and unicorn toys nestled in the rocks, and the cashier has marbles for making wishes. The next room had an arabic tent kind of theme going on. I passed by the cashier on the way out, telling her how cool her shop was, and then Jamie pointed me outside, where a kids-trapped-with-sight-seeing-parents oasis exists. It was a huge playground, with samples of their toys to try out, a huge climbing structure, fountains, a homemade popsicle stand, and a hobbit house with swaying bridge at the entry. SO COOL!!!

I ran around showing Jo everything. But then our meter ran out and we had to get to the car before we got ticketed. Sigh. But I did buy the kids a Christmas gift on my way out.

We weren't staying in Taos, but at the ski village up the road, where summer rates are ridiculously low. Our place was a big 2 bed/2 bath ski-in/ski-out place with a nice kitchen: a must for traveling with a baby. We dumped our stuff, fed Jacob, and headed out to walk around. First of all, Taos is crazy steep, and I doubt I'll ever ski there. The village is simple, mostly shut up for the summer, and nothing like the ski villages in Colorado. But it is gorgeous. You're truly nestled in a valley, with streams from the mountains running through, and groves and groves of Aspen.


I can't imagine what it looks like in the fall. We had a delicious meal and beer a for dinner, watched the 2nd round of the Open, and called it an evening. Or so we thought... We'd exhausted Jordan past the point of sleep apparently, and she stayed up until 1 a.m., just fussing.

The next morning we did our big hike up to Williams Lake, weary from the night before. But the beautiful surrounds perked us up, i.e. me and Jamie. Jordan got 100 yards in and quit walking. It was steep, it was 4 miles roundtrip, and Jamie carried her on his shoulders the whole way. Dammit, we were seeing that lake. And it was worth it. The lake is in a bowl at 11,000 ft, just under Mt. Wheeler, the highest peak in New Mexico. You hike up through the forests, you pass natural springs along the way, big fields of granite boulders, wild flowers... so so pretty. Jacob had a great time in the Bjorn, and got lots of attention from passing hikers. At the top, we walked around the lake some, had a snack (that's Jordan's carrot-on-a-stick for hikes), got a family picture, and then had to head back due to the sun. Sunscreen and all, 11,000 feet at midday is no place to hang out if you don't have shade.


We made sure the kids took good naps that afternoon, and then we drove back out to Taos for dinner. We ate at Doc Marten's, which was much fancier than we expected. It was my birthday dinner, so I took advantage and ordered the tasting menu that was paired with wine. 4 courses of deliciousness. First course was rabbit-rattlesnake sausage, and Jordan liked it. Wait till she reads about that later... Everything was yummy, a little too leisurely though, and we got done after dark: too late to go see the Gorge.

The main ski lift for Taos was right outside our window, and they run that lift on the weekends in the summer. Jordan had been asking to get on it since she first saw it. So the last morning there, we bought our lift tickets and took the trip. Those things are scary with your kids, and when there's no snow. You can kid yourself in winter that if you fall off, you'll probably just land in that soft snow and all will be ok. Not so in summer. There are rocks down there. Big ones. Anyway, no one fell off, and no one was scared except me.


We got to the top, also 11,000 feet, also midday, so we didn't stay real long. I was lucky enough to see a big fat coyote run up the hill, and then out came the deer it scared off. We went looking for the marmot Jamie had seen on his run that morning, but he was hiding. So we rode the lift down (even scarier than riding up) and l said good-bye to Taos Ski Valley.

On our way home we stopped at a few touristy places. First up was the Rio Grande Gorge bridge we'd missed the night before. The river cuts thru the mesa and leaves a 600+ ft canyon. We parked and walked to the mid point of the bridge. It was crowded, there are sidewalks for this, and bridges shake. It was a nice view, especially with the storm clouds approaching.

Our guide book said this bridge is where the wedding scene in Natural Born Killers was filmed. Funny, because I had just watched that part of the movie for the first time in like 10 years. Jamie's impression of the Rio Grande Gorge? "It's no Grand Canyon". Well, duh.

Next stop was the San Francisco de Asis church on the south side of Taos. No one got out of the car but me. It's been made famous by Ansel Adams and Georgia O'Keeffe, so of course I had to take pictures of it. Until I ran out of memory. Sigh again. It's a cool building, you can see the straw in the adobe. I wish I'd been there later in the day, though, when the light is prettier. But it was a fun stop, for me.


So, we came back to a 104 degree afternoon in the ABQ. And on I-40, to greet us back and say "Hope you liked your weekend getaway, but you're home now", was a police scene sadly typical of this town: eight cop cars pulled over some dude in a white SUV, and the cop at the front car had a huge rifle trained on the idiot standing next to the SUV, arms waving in the air. I didn't even bother watching the news that night to see what it was all about. Welcome home, Kropka family, welcome home.