Jay Richards

The last day and a half we went up to Taos to check it out.

There was a storm moving in from the west that pushed us nicely along. Hardly seemed to step on the gas. The sun and light was doing some interesting things during the afternoon that made for some spectacular scenes.
First stop was the Taos Pueblo.

Definitely an interesting landmark. The only thing that seemed odd is the natives had shops in the Pueblo that took away some of the authenticity.

Bird feeder.
Most peculiar dog. Cross between a bear, porcupine and buffalo.
Went to the Rio Grande Gorge bridge. Very cool. Cruising along the plains and all of a sudden this impressive cut into the earth. Can't imagine what the first explorers thought when they came to this and had to figure out how they were going to get across.
Big cottonwood stump. About the size of a vw bug.

Instead of chips free dinner extra...
Where is the snow?
Drove past this and looked like fall. Didn't see any other trees blooming like this.
Drove up to Taos Ski Valley. Beaver problems even in the mountains. House flooded out.
Upper part of Taos Ski Valley area. Close to 11,000 ft. Still lots of snow but closed for the season. Pretty wild you can go from dessert like terrain to high alpine environment with 5 feet of snow in about 45 minutes.
On the way back saw this Solar Center place. Had no idea what it was. Thought maybe a ecoearthynewagealternativeenergy place. Went in to check it out because I was curious about this huge solar panel. Jonell waited in the car. Walked in and after going down a couple hallways still couldn't figure out what it was. Turns out it was a bar, radio station and a big tent like structure that they hosted concerts/bands powered by the big solar panel. When I walked in to the bar area I could hardly believe they had ESPN on and the UMD/Mich hockey game for D1 National Championship. Went back out to get Jonell and we watched the game.
While we were watching, John Hooker Jr was warming up to play that night. The game ended up going in OT and the place quickly filled up. We were the only ones watching the game out of a couple hundred and the bartender was nice enough to leave the game on. Everyone else was the Jerry Garcia groupie follower type. Since we were in we watched the concert for a while.
The view outside had a nice mountainous backdrop and in the summer they do outdoor concerts. Was a most interesting scene for sure and made for a good memory for our last night in New Mex.



The next morning we woke up to 28 degrees and a dusting of snow with a good 3-6" up higher. Typical April weather in the mountains.






Brunch at Graham's Grille. Sundays the servers wear jammie pants Jonell thought was the greatest. I thought the meal here was the best the entire trip. Voted best in Taos!



Chilly walking around Taos but excellent end to a great trip! Thanks to family and friends who helped watch the kids including Ramsey who took Jon all the way up to Warroad so he play hockey.