The Road to Taos

Leaving Four Corners
We left that silly place called Four Corners and made our way east deeper into New Mexico. The landscape became less desert and more mountainous and green.

The drive east through New Mexico was very scenic and peaceful. We found a quiet place to sit and soak in the views of the hills, mountains and lakes of New Mexico.

The Rio Grande
We were pretty excited about seeing the Rio Grande.

I mean, who hasn't heard of the Rio Grande? In Spanish the name means "Large River". Visions of this mighty river filled my head. I could't wait to stand on it's majestic banks and watch the turbulent waters rush past. Maybe just put my feet in the water and imagine the days of old when cowboys and early settlers depended so much on this oasis of vitality in such a parched land.

When we found the Rio Grande visitors center, I knew it was only a matter of time until I saw the Rio Grande with my own eyes! The actual Rio Grande - wow!

And there is was! The Rio Grande...hey, wait a second. Look at this thing?

THIS is the Rio Grande?

I could cross this thing and probably not even get my ankles wet.

THIS is the Rio Grande?

To be fair, we are way up in northern New Mexico, near the source of the Rio Grande. As the Rio Grande travels south, more and more water is contributed to it, resulting in the mighty river that we hear about.

Well, even the most famous and powerful people were once helpless infants. We watched the water slowly and innocently drifted by, oblivious to its infamous future.


Taos
We finally arrived in the town of Taos, nestled in the mountains of Northern Mexico. This is the sort of place that you want to spend several days enjoying. Unfortunately we don't have that kind of time.

You don't want to come to Taos if you are hungry for cake. A large portion of the buildings are made of adobe and look a bit edible. They are not though. Not even with a little chocolate syrup and whip cream. Trust me, I know. It's also difficult to explain what you are doing to an inquisitive policeman. Trust me, I know.

We enjoyed exploring Taos. Although a bit touristy, it appeared to be also a bit laid back. Taos is a springboard for lots of mountain adventures. Definitely an enjoyable and unique town and area.

Chiles and Enchiladas
The food here is incredibly good. Do you remember the welcome sign for New Mexico? It also showed a picture of a red and green chile pepper? We are now realizing that there is a connection between enchantment and chiles.

Incidentally, if the chiles are too spicy, you may experience post-enchantment disenchantment, but we won't get into that.

So we found a nice little place in Taos to try out New Mexico's renown chile sauces.

We were first handed a savory bowl of chips, salsa and guacamole. Notice the bottle of Cholula sauce? We will be living about 10 minutes away from the city of Cholula from which this sauce is named.

New Mexico is known for it's enchiladas smothered in chile sauce. You can get the chile sauce in either red or green, or both. I ordered enchiladas with both (the middle one has green sauce).

It came with beans and pozole. Where we will be living in Mexico, pozole is more of a soup, but far to the north, here in New Mexico, pozole has evolved into mostly the core ingredient of pozole soup - whole hominy kernels. The entire dish was extremely good.

Nicki chose something similar. It was layered shrimp enchiladas. You can see that she wanted to experience the same things however, the addictive flavors of the red and green chile sauces, beans, and pozole.

If you look closely in this picture, you can also see evidence of how long the guacamole lasted once it was placed on the table.

Conclusion
We've always wanted to explore the Taos area of New Mexico. It was definitely worth it. A very unique and interesting place. Interesting sites, interesting tastes.

It is rather....um, oh what is the right word....nice....no wait....good....no that's not it....
I got it.......enchanting.

Tomorrow the road leads to Santa Fe...