20 Dec More local exploring with our parents – Part II

November 10 – 13

Thursday:

Well, another whirlwind adventure!

My parents arrived after dark on a Thursday evening so natural first thing was to get unpacked and tour the charmingly “Abominable” Snowmansion lodge/art gallery that we help caretake as part of our work trade here in Arroyo Seco.

The Snowmansion is equipped with a commercial kitchen so we took advantage of the space to cook some New Mexico inspired cuisine. We whiled away the night catching up and and winding down, for a big day was just around the corner.

Friday

Morning brunch was at our favorite cafe/organic grocer in town, Sol Food, and it gets better every time. Their green chile is up there with the best, perfect fuel for for the day to come.

We began our touring with the local landscape. It is a unique place geologically speaking, so we headed out to the mesa across the rather epic Rio Grande Gorge Bridge, tenth highest in the US, more than 600 feet above the rio. Sarah and I had never previously stopped for the view from the bridge and finally had the perfect excuse. It was intense. Certainly dizzying to have the ground slowly leave, but coupled with the fact that the Rio Grande Rift is one of the thinnest sections of earths crust, maybe some weird geomagnetic energies leaking out through there. Lovely hike, awesome views either way.

Just a few miles beyond the bridge is the edge of the Earthship colonies. Earthships are self-sustaining domiciles, artfully constructed out of earth and trash. We don’t have pictures but they are definitely worth a google.

After a quick poke around, we headed to the lavish Milicent Rogers Museum. It was an inspiring look at regional art such as pottery, textiles, and jewelry from the collection of the first main patron of the native artisans

The day still needed some zazz so we headed down to our new favorite winery, Black Mesa. We happen to live within the most delicious US wine producing region outside of California. After too many free samples of ciders, we headed up to the best restaurant in town: Medley. Tacos, vegan relleno, New Zealand lamb, whatever you get from Medley is guaranteed to be the height of whatever said dish can offer.

Saturday:

On Saturday we began with the final day of the local farmers market, where we breakfasted on the best family-made tamales in town & continued with shopping and tea around the historic Spanish plaza.

Afterward, we picked up Sarah for a quick poke around the base of beautiful Taos Ski Valley and sampled the pizza for an early dinner at our local favorite Taos Ale House. The lodge was an ideal place to relax and end the trip with pool, board games & popcorn!

The trip was short but we were happy to pack in as much sight-seeing as possible for their first time in Taos!