Last week, Kathy and I returned from from our trip to New Mexico. Here are a few photos from the trip (all taken by Kathy).
In the spirit of the 100th anniversary of Route 66, we stopped at the Route 66 Auto Museum in Santa Rosa:
The view from Atalaya Mountain north of Santa Fe:
A bone fragment from St. Francis Xavier (patron of the greatest university in America!), exhibited in The Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi in Santa Fe:
A mariachi band at the Del Charro Saloon in Santa Fe. Great music, and a great quesadilla!
The famous spiral staircase in the Loretto Chapel in Santa Fe. Its existence and construction is a
pretty amazing story:
The San Francisco de Asis church in Taos. This adobe mission was constructed between 1772 and 1816. Ansel Adams took several iconic photos of the church in 1929. If you ever get a chance to visit this wonderful site, be sure to stop for lunch at the Ranchos Plaza Grill. You won't regret it...
The Rio Grande Gorge bridge stands 650 feet above the river below, making it the fifth highest bridge in the United States. This is the original “Bridge to Nowhere.” During its construction in the 1960s, funding didn't exist to continue the road on the other side, thus leading to its nickname. There's a trail that extends south from the bridge for several miles if you wish to see this incredible geological feature up close. The gorge has the appearance of being a crack in the Earth's crust:
On our final day in the state, we intended to hike to
Gold Hill near Wheeler Peak. Unfortunately, lingering snow pack conspired to thwart our plans. At roughly the 2.75-mile mark we began to encounter snow patches, which proceeded to get worse the higher we climbed. At roughly the four-mile mark, we finally threw in the towel. We thought we would rise above the treeline at some point, and thus out of the snow, but there was no end in sight. As we descended from our highpoint we snapped a few photos in a small meadow that looked towards Wheeler Peak and the Taos Ski area. Though the photo below seemingly indicates that massive amounts of snow were still around at this point, this view is of the north side of those mountains. We were climbing the south side of Gold Hill. The Taos Ski area webcam showed very little snow on Gold Hill the day before, but the trees at the mid elevations hid the lingering snow.
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