New Mexico Road Trip Days 6,7 and 8

 We spent 2 nights in Santa Fe and then drove 65 miles to Albuquerque for our final night.  While we were in Santa Fe we took a local history tour and then wandered around the City Plaza for a while on our own. Santa Fe is steeped in history and art, so it is a fun place to visit.

San Miguel Chapel or Mission is the oldest church in the United States

The Palace of Governors is the oldest continually used seat of Government in the US. Native venders line the sidewalk there. A unique barred window used old gun barrels for the bars.

Loretto Church has a miraculous spiral staiway built without structural support

Settlement statue recognizing the contributions of the European settlers

St Francis Cathedral with its statue to the first Native American Saint 

Kateri Terkakwitha, a Mohawk dressed here in local fashion.

The Museum of Art

We arrived in Albuquerque in the afternoon and took a stroll along the Rio Grande and a drive along Rt 66 ending with dinner in an old diner on the route.

 

Our flight was not until 2 pm, so we made one last stop on the trip at 

the National Atomic Energy Museum

It was sobering to see how prepared the US has been during our lifetime to launch nuclear weapons

New Mexico Road Trip Days 4 and 5

 Day 4 we drove just 243 miles from Truth or Consequences to Los Alamos, and most of it was on the interstate.  We made a couple of side trips.  First to Petroglyph National Monument on the outskirts of Albuquerque. This has a visitor center where there are no petroglyphs, but you can pick up a map to the three dispersed units of the park that do have petroglyphs.  We went to Boca Negra Canyon which seemed to be the easiest to access.

The macaw seems to have been an important symbol

Then as we were driving north along I-25 we spotted a roadsign for a Mormon Battalion Monument, so we took a quick diversion off the road. It was erected in 1947 and is really out in the middle of nowhere.

We arived in Los Alamos with time to explore the town.  It was a nice town to stroll through, but the city was on stage 2 evacuation alert from the wildfires burning in nearby forests. There are lots of interesting museums and more ruins to explore, but everything was closed because of the wildfires so we only stayed one night.

Day 5 we drove a leisurely 184 miles looping Taos and ending up in Santa Fe. We first headed to Taos ski resort, which was in full spring bloom with no snow in sight. Then back to the city of Taos.  We hoped to see the ancient Taos Pueblo, but it was closed to the public. 

Taos Ski Reosrt

We ate lunch in the Alley Cafe, in a building originally built in the 16th century as atrading post. It had mostly been rebuilt in the 17th to 19th centuries, but the back wall was original.

Traditional New Mexican food.  The New Mexico State Question is "Red or Green?"

The smoke from the fires was visible everywhere north of Santa Fe

This impressive gorge contains the Rio Grande River, the most prominent feature of the Rio Grand Rift Valley, one of only 4 rift valleys in the world, formed when tectonic plates move apart.

New Mexico Road Trip Day 3

 On day three of our trip we left Alamogordo and took a 339 mile loop through the south western corner of New Mexico.

We started the day at White Sands National Monument. It is the largest gypsum dunefield in the world, covering 275 square miles.

Clearly we haven't mastered the art of the selfie yet!

And mesh shoes are not the best choice for walking in the dunes

We drove south to get west from there and stopped in Deming at Blake's Lotaburger, a New Mexico chain, for lunch.

After lunch we wandered our way north to the Gila Cliff Dwellings. The structures within the caves have been dated between 1276 and 1300, but the caves had long been used as a gathering place judging from the smoked roof of the caves.

We reached the caves following a lovely shady trail along the creek, which might help explain the location for the dwellings.

We ended the day at Truth or Consequences,  New Mexico a small town noted for it's mineral hot springs and a willingness to officially change the name of the town from Hot Springs to Truth or Consequences so they could host a radio show of the same name for one broadcast. Not many dining options, but the mineral spring at our hotel was nice.

New Mexico Road Trip Days 1 and 2

Just for fun we decided to take a New Mexico Road trip.  We picked a few locations we thought we might like to explore, then flew to Albuquerque and rented a car. Over the course of our travels we drove 1,795 miles and walked 37 miles. Sadly there were no bicycle miles on this trip.

We arrived in Albuquerque in the early afternoon and and headed toward Alamogordo where we spent our first two nights.  On the way we stopped at the Trinity Nuclear test site. There is not much to see there, a sign and some wide open spaces.

Later in the trip, we saw this replica of the launch pad for the world's first atomic bomb.

 Our next quick stop was Valley of Fire BLM recreation area, which was most a lava flow.

Our final side trip was at the Three Rivers Petroglyph site.

The next morning we made 395 mile loop tour of southeastern New Mexico to visit Carlsbad Caverns. Which were amazing, but not really on the road to anywhere.