June 25th, 2001

Well, it didn't happen in Albuquerque, but I couldn't resist using a gratuitous Bugs Bunny quote. Hey, at least it wasn't "What's up, Doc?"

This day was just all sorts of screwed up. It was bound to happen at some point, so might as well do it now... this would be "Stupid Thing Number 3" that's happened on this trip. I think I can get away with blaming this one on Alie. Oh why not, she loves the abuse. Don't you Alie?
OW! Damn you hit hard!

Anyways, gee. What to tackle first. Well, here's a novel idea... I'll do em in order!

Getting hosed in Taos

The whole reason for this leg of the trip was to see the pueblo dwellings in Taos. So, in the morning we began driving north on I-25. This put us passing through Santa Fe, which was a really neat city. I guess everyone got together there and decided that all the architecture should look like pueblo indian dwellings. So consequently the entire city has the look of some urban Native American metropolis.

We got lost in Santa Fe, talk about foreshadowing! They have a rather strange city layout, including some loop da loop road thingus in the middle of town that messes with your head. We found the highway we wanted, 84, after a time and began heading north into Taos.

Along the way, you follow mostly 2 lane highway that winds through mountains. Adding to the general sense of well being and security one has cruising dangerously close to the side of cliffs was the continual warnings posted about falling rocks.

On the really cool side, you travel alongside the Rio Grande for a long time. I pulled over at one point and walked down to the river to frolic a little bit. Then I realized that if I went wading I'd get swept downcurrent... the water was moving fast. So... I just settled for dipping my feet in the water while sitting on a rock.

Got to Taos intact... it turns out it's a bit of a resort town... kinda. Lots of traffic. I think in addition to the Pueblo stuff there's a couple ski resorts near.

Anyways... we found the Pueblo Indians and all was good. You park just outside of the village and begin walking in. There's a few dilapidated buildings and a cemetary... and then you get to an "information booth" which informs you that entrance to the village to see the really cool stuff costs $10. Okay... fine.

There's also a "photography permit" that needs to be bought if you want to take pictures.

It costs $20.

Alie and I just sorta looked at each other, gave the Pueblo village a great big mental middle finger and left.

In doing so, I think we pissed off the Pueblo Indian God of Sense of Direction...

Another Stupid Thing... take 3

Well, I can't totally blame Alie for this. I can blame Taos' Dept. of Transportation or whoever in the hell it is who maintains their road signs. The rest I can blame on Alie. Right?

OW! That's the same place you hit me before!

So, we need to get on Highway 64 and head east, which will eventually run smack dab into I-25, which we will then take north into Colorado and Colorado Springs. Well, we find Highway 64, the only sign we could find for 64, and started following it.

Along the way we stopped by some way overpriced gift shop and diner. We wandered around a little bit, checking out stuff. The pictures of me in the archway and the one of us in the big chair are from there.

On the way out of Taos, we stop by the Rio Grande Gorge. I swear this thing had to be a couple thousand feet deep. The pictures of it I took, again, don't come anywhere near conveying its depth.

Where in the hell are we?

Before I continue, I would just like to say that northern New Mexico does not look like it belongs in New Mexico. It reminds me a lot of rural Pennsylvania... with different trees. It's really quite beautiful countryside... lotsa winding roads and green trees and grass and stuff everywhere.

So la dee da... we're driving along, oooh... lookit the pretty scenery, smelling the wonderful pine scented air... and running into towns not on the map. Okay... maybe they're just so dinky they aren't worth putting on the map. Sounds good.

lalalalalalala... driving along... still no towns... nice mountains, valleys... pretty pretty pretty... lalalalalalala

So here we are, driving along for 2 hours, getting a little uneasy about the fact that we're hitting towns that aren't on the map...

That's when we realize we'd gone the wrong way on 64 and were now about 100 miles of winding mountain roads (give or take) in the opposite direction we should've been going. I think the exact feeling at that moment was "Oh shit." We'd actually almost made it to the Colorado border. The bottom right picture shows how far off we were. Finger on the left is where we were. Finger on the right it where we should've been.

Something I noticed... "motels" and "hotels" up in the mountains seem to magically transform themselves into "lodges". They don't look any different though. Very strange.

The nice thing is, we're not too far from a country road that'll make getting back the way we want to go a little less painful. For those of you following along, it was Highway 17. It travels through Carson National Forest. So we take that to Highway 285, which we follow north until it hits Highway 160, which we take to Interstate I-25.

Let me tell you, it sucked we got lost, but damn it was beautiful up there. Or down there, depending on your orientation. The bad thing was that damn near all the driving before you hit 160 was winding mountain road. Well... there was that and the fact that as we were driving along out in the middle or nowhere I kept thinking I heard Dueling Banjos playing in the distance. I mean, listening to the radio I heard a commercial about cellular phone service. Okay, what's strange about that, you ask? Well, it used sheep herding as a selling point. "My dad used to go around saying shear, shear. Now he goes around saying share, share, thanks to our new cellular calling plan." And no, we didn't look the part of tourists or anything.

One amusing thing... while driving through the mountains and alongside cliffs I remembered something I always wanted to do. So I pulled the car over into a turn out a ways up on one of the roads overlooking a valley. I looked around, taking in the wondrous scenery, inhaled deeply the clean and sweet mountain air... then proceeded to scream at the top of my lungs and listen to it reverb through the mountains. Alie gets out and decides to join me, so we spend like 5 minutes yelling things like "HELLO!" and "ECHO!" out into the empty space. Yes, we're dorks. I think we probably scared off all the local wildlife and had all the people living in the valley looking to lynch us. So we drove away quickly.

Into Colorado Springs...

Eventually we found I-25, got to Colorado Springs and met up with Alie's friend, Carrie. She's another globe trotter like Alie... very sweet girl. She's made us Rice Krispy treats and a little goodie bag to take with us on our trip. Well, calling her a girl is misleading. She's 28. Looks like she's 22 though. A friend of hers named Adam is going to let us crash at his place. His house rocks. It's 3 stories, all hardwood everything. The top floor has an awesome view of Pike's Peak.

We decide to go out, and invite a friend of Carrie, Lacie, out with us. Adam passes on joining us. We go to a bar called The Ritz and hang out for a few hours. Turns out all three of them, Alie, Carrie and Lacie are all teachers. Well, Lacie is getting her teaching degree now. She wants to teach internationally. Carrie is going down to work in Antarctica to work for a year or so at the end of this summer. A company called Raytheon operates down there, and supposedly the pay is really good and you have like zero overhead... food and shelter is paid for.

Eventually we all head back to Adam's house and retire to our respective rooms.