“The High Toad to Taos” is the suggested route to Santa Fe, though most people take it going in the opposite direction. The low road is the highway which runs along the river. It is a rainy morning and even with gray skies, the drive is scenic. At 8,000 ft, the forest is dense with pines and tall junipers. As the road descends, the vegetation is desert-like but the terrain is that of peaks and valleys.
The Church of San Jose de Gracia in the tiny town of La Trampas was built between 1774-76.
Chimayo, situated in the foothills of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, is famous for the weavings of the Ortega and Trujillo families, and there are several small and very old buildings marked “weavers”.
Our next stop is El Santuario de Chimayo, a present-day pilgrimage site and Roman Catholic chapel.
The skies begin to clear as we enter Santa Fe. We have tickets for the Georgia O’keeffe museum, which is just delightful. Santa Fe’s historic downtown is simply beautiful, with uniform adobe buildings around a plaza and several streets beyond. It is clean and well maintained full of galleries, a few artists doing demos, and an art fair. This was what I had pictured Taos would be like. We spend a very enjoyable afternoon strolling through the art fair and high end galleries, admiring the exquisite and beautiful art, and eating french pastries in the park.
The skies darken and a huge crackle of lightning sends us back to the car and on our way to Albuquerque for the night.