A little jaunt in the country
For Corndog’s birthday, we headed out for a nice drive and lunch in the country between here (Alcalde, New Mexico – near Espanola) and Taos. We headed up Highway 68, and at the town of Pilar, we turned off to go up Highway 570 into Bureau of Land Management (BLM) land along the Rio Grande, where the river just comes out of the deep gorge.
The gorge is not so deep here as it is farther north, but it is still impressive. There were some fishermen out along the banks; a local said the fishing is getting good now, in December.
Then we saw some frickin’ graffiti.
I guess back in 1933 when that one inscription was made, there weren’t too many people around here. Another inscription seems to indicate 1917 — some cowboy round-up event (“8/282930/17”).
We kept on up the road, which climbed upward away from the bottom of the gorge. The view started to open up.
And it opened up more.
We got a glimpse of the Rio Grande, now far below.
The drop-offs were sort of scary in places. Bliss Cat did not want to take chances, so she drove, and she did not look around.
A few more turns…
… and we were out on top.
Suddenly, we’re in wide open spaces! Beautiful!
Looking back, you almost don’t see the gorge at all.
It turns out that there was an easier way across all along…
Oh well.
We were cruising along and enjoying the scenery, when we saw a traffic jam up ahead. What?!! Now, this was before one of us had any beers for lunch.
OH! Just icing on the birthday cake, I see.
The big dog in the small car ahead of us barked at the sheep, and it prudently moved off. Corndog was concerned that it might get hung up in the wire fence, but it sailed over the fence pretty handily.
It was quite a good day trip!