You may not find this terribly rewarding unless you're included here, so this is a good time for casual and random browsers to turn back before they get too caught up in the sweep and majesty of the proceedings and can't let go.
The tourist shop was rewarding, in terms of awareness of traditional arts and crafts well executed, but as we're coming up on a four-day drive with a full car, plus two unpredictable cats, we're not really looking for bargains at this time.
-- Where shall we go next?
That squatty thing there is called a horno, an adobe clay outdoor oven fired by wood. The concept was originally brought to Iberian Spain by the Moors and conveyed by the Spanish throughout all their colonies. The word is Spanish, too, a corruption of the Latin furnus, i.e. furnace.
Wikipedia describes the different methods for preparing bread, corn, and meat ['A twenty-one-pound turkey takes 2½ to 3 hours to be cooked'].
Pacing through the mini-plazas and . . .
. . . the back alleys. Fascinating. And not overcrowded with tourists (it's January!).
That's probably the tallest building on the southern side.
The sign on the barrier indicates that we're not meant to have been wandering round on this side of it.
So we reemerge from the back alleys. No fascinating craft shops back there anyway.
This part of town is okay though.
During the US Civil War, Confederate sympathizers in Taos tried to steal the US flag, and Kit Carson, with two friends, nailed it to a cottonwood flagpole and posted guards around it 24 hours a day ('a tradition that continues'). That took place in the Taos Plaza, but this raggedy old thing brings that event to mind.
Perhaps someone should consider posting a guard round this semi-embarrassment, too. Unless it's preferred this way.
We're heading back towards the creek again, bound for the other bridge.
We're obviously at one of the limits of the tourist experience here.
The mighty Rio Pueblo de Taos. Full of trout!
-- No worries. We're just passing through.
We're on the northern side now, with even more hornos (horni?).
No. Hornos.
Looking back across the 'river' at the southerners
The northern side of the Pueblo is said to be 'the largest multistory Pueblo structure still existing' (Wikipedia).
Other sources add 'still inhabited'.
Morning Talk Indian Shop [Open. Welcome. Ignore the skull, come right on in.]
It's time to take our leave now. An hour and a half directly to Santa Fe, but in fact we're planning to drive west a ways to see the Rio Grande Bridge.
A lot of fun flags, not identifiable from here. Except the one on the right.
More folks having paid up at the entrance and looking forward to a fantastic experience. All of the wonderful things people can do with mud and grass (even without piped-in running water).
-- Say, which way's the exit. Oh, good, thanks.
Out we go, west on state route NM-64, eventually past the Taos Regional Airport, 13 miles (20km) to the . . .
. . . Rio Grande Gorge Bridge.
Yikes!
A recreation area? There's nothing out here but sagebrush and a bridge over an abyss!
A popular destination, though, people flocking in for a good look.
Good grief. A mini-Grand Canyon! Who knew?
Apparently, since earliest times, there have been Pueblo communities all along the Rio Grande and its tributaries. How'd they get from one side to the other? That thing's only been open since 1965.
'At 650 feet above the river, The Rio Grande Gorge Bridge is the second highest bridge on the U.S. Highway System and the fifth highest bridge in the United States. During construction of the bridge in the 1960s, funding did not exist to continue the road on the other side, leading to its nickname, the “Bridge to Nowhere.”' (source)
Walmart trucks here, too. They seem always to be following us.
Some 30 years ago or so, when visiting daughter Alison in Socorro, NM, I borrowed a bike from one of her roommates and pedaled across the Rio Grande bottom outside of town. There was only about two inches of water in it -- the whole area is flatter than a frying pan (and hotter). That's what I expected here -- have I been disabused, or what?
Unfortunately on the other side, I popped a tire and had to hide the bike in some bushes and run back across . . . the Rio Grande!
Here, as we're returning south down NM-285 on this side of the river, there's the town of Taos some 18 miles away.
What happened to all the mountains?
Weird clouds, no? Bringing rain, yeah? [Not likely]
A Mini-Masada
What do people do out here for fun? Shoot gophers? Rattlesnakes?
Entering civilization, apparently. The Rock Shop ('calm wonder'). That's the Chimayo Rocks store in Española, so in about three minutes we'll be crossing back over the Rio Grande to the eastern side.
And then . . .
. . . left to our own hopes, dreams, and prayers of another pleasant dinner at the Legal Tender in Lamy.
Actually, we've passed by Santa Fe now and are already hurtling towards 102 Apache Ridge Road . . .
. . . where the kids seem very pleased to see us home again.
We're aware that they are pleased to see us because, though their faces never change one way or another, they surely know that it's time for their dinner.
As we're getting industriously packed up for our Vastly Disspiriting Traverse of the great American flatlands, followed by daylong stretches with no motels that take pets on the far side of the Mississippi . . .
. . . George is leading us on a neat little path we hadn't noticed from the Apache Ridge Road above.
An agreeable little path, which, however . . .
. . . looks rather like a water course temporarily out of service.
Not that any monstrous rushing of waters is anticipated at this time, but we've been taught that it's always better to be prepared. Just in case.
Our colleagues are discussing types of trees and their characteristics here, but for some of us it's a bit hard to follow.
I mean, a tree's just a tree, right?
Back up to Apache Ridge Road, we find the state thingie that we noticed some days ago.
It doesn't seem fair to wall all of this fine walking place off from the public, but George mentioned that if you want to cross over the fence and have a healthy walk round, you just need to call them up and ask permission.
Soon, we'll have to be leaving George to his own devices here, sorting out various issues left unattended during his dad's last years.
So goodbye to that bizarre faux-Greek statue at the far end of the garden. Perhaps we'll see you again someday, perhaps not.
Just prior to packing up the Virginia Rocket for home, 4 January, we have visitors . . .
. . . come to see us off.
Next up: The road trip home, and home
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All rights reserved, all wrongs avenged. Posted 12 March 2026.
