Gems on & off the High Road, 3 M

Two interesting and scenic routes connect Santa Fe and Taos: the High Road and its rather obvious counterpart, the Low Road.  It is a common tourist activity to take one going and the other coming, but if you don't know whether you're coming or going, there is no telling where you might end up.

At any rate, we were headed out of Santa Fe beyond Taos to the village of Red River, high up in the Sangre de Cristo Mountain Range.  In some ways, we miss the convenience of having our trailer home-away-from-home; however, at the same time, there's a real freedom while road tripping to explore any (or all) byways that call.

Not very far along with our day, we detoured onto the Old Callejon Road, just because it looked intriguing.  Everywhere across the country are roads that are marked as "Old something-or-other road" that are typically routes that have been bypassed with more direct and wider highways, and they are almost always more interesting and scenic.  Those are the ones I like.

In this case, we found ourselves wandering along a dusty path little more than a car's width that accessed properties hidden behind huge trees with red blooming trumpet vine climbing their mammoth trunks, and fences crafted from upright branches often with live plants and vines growing through them.  It was possible to occasionally catch a glimpse of an adobe structure down a dirt drive.

I think we were on Pojoaque Pueblo land at that juncture.  Unfortunately, that charming road ended when it was bisected by a modern highway, or fortunately, because otherwise, we might still be lost out there.

Next turnoff was to Nambe Lake & Waterfalls, also on tribal property.  Our excitement was quashed when we were stopped by a locked gate adorned with a sign that informed us the site was closed except for long weekends - dagnabit! 

Meanwhile, not too far further ahead, while tooling along yet another road to nowhere, we opted to visit a small trading post.  Batting a thousand then, it also awaited non-mid-week hours to open.  Fortunately, those places are near enough to Santa Fe that we can check them out when we return to the city.

Yet another side track from the much-touted High Road took us through one of the more unique villages I've seen - Cordova.  The settlement is perched along the steep sides of a canyon that is itself perched on the side of a far deeper and more vast canyon.

It seemed to be entirely random in nature: narrow dirt roads wind past dwellings, most of adobe, some with hand-painted signs attesting to an artisan's or craftsperson's gallery within.  The streets, such as they are, remain unidentified to the interloper chancing into the place, one branching off from another to wind further below as cliff face allows, with no visibility beyond the next curve.  Unmaintained adobes have collapsed in on themselves, occasional newer homes are cheek-by-jowl with ancient dwellings, sometimes separated by rock walls or adobe fences.

It would be worth a person's while to spend considerable time exploring that very fascinating place, and others along the way, but eventually, one must continue on one's way lest one never reach one's destination.

Chimayo, a sanctuary & a restaurant . . .

A place that exudes the charm of generation after generation living quiet simple lives while continuing the traditions of handwork and cuisine handed down from one to the next, it is perhaps best known for the Santuario de Nuestro Señor de Esquipulas, usually called simply the Sanctuario de Chimayo.

It is the site of a miracle in ages past, where an 1816 chapel has grown to incorporate a complex visited by hundreds of visitors: tourists, those seeking healing or solace, and prayerful pilgrims pursuing a sacred destination.

 On display are thousands of photographs of individuals whose families have left them there for prayer.

The peaceful grounds are adorned with statues, carvings and memorials depicting saints, intermingling cultures and religious figures.

This was our second time to El Sanctuario; the first was not long after Darren's passing, and it was a significant stop for us then.   I wrote more about it from that time, so will not go into detail now.  We sat in the chapel, bathed in the sacred atmosphere, then lit a candle and left a prayer for Darren.

Leaving the sanctuary beyond the midday point caused our senses to notice a nearby dining place.  In the grand scheme of things, it could have been passed by as just one more charming adobe villa, but serious pangs demanded that have a look-see, and we were very glad we did.

As we waited a few minutes in the vestibule for our seating, we had no idea what was in store for us.  The place is a maze of rooms and delightful terraced patios lined with a riot of plants.  I sensed at once that it must have been developed from a residence, and so it proved to be.

Many generations of the Jaramillo family had resided in Chamayo.  One descendant, Arturo Jaramillo and his wife Florence envisioned and developed the Restaurante Rancho de Chimayo from the house built by his forebears, Hermenegildo & Trinidad Jaramillo.

Within the building, I felt comfortably at home, impressed that original family portraits still adorn the whitewashed walls of the rooms. 

Beyond the allure of the hacienda-turned-restaurant, the food follows the traditional family fare, having earned many culinary awards for the place and for Mrs. Jaramillo for excellence and for preserving their heritage.  Our meals were spectacularly flavorful and served beautifully.  In my humble opinion, a trip to the Santa Fe area ought to include the experience of dining there.

Antiquity . . .

. . . is the norm rather than the exception thereabouts, but one particular site at Las Trampas surpasses all else in that category - and that is the San Jose de Gracia church.

In 1751, a land grant recipient brought 12 families from Santa Fe to settle in the Las Trampas area.  Beginning in 1760, they constructed the church, now a National Historic Landmark.  It remains in use even now as the community's center with religious ceremonies and rituals to observe the agriculture cycle.

Local parishioners maintain the structure by periodically re-mudding the six-foot-thick adobe walls.  It is considered one of the best preserved examples of Spanish Colonial architecture.  I would have loved to go inside, but alas, it was locked up tight.

It appeared that the entire church yard was a burying ground with gravestones scattered amongst the sparse weeds.

Eventually, our greatly lengthened drive delivered us to Red River, a sweet little burg of 550 full-time residents and about a gazillion vacation/seasonal homes at an elevation of more than 8,600 feet, a height that our lungs acknowledged whenever we did any climbing. 

Beautifully situated in the Sangre de Cristos near Wheeler Peak, New Mexico's highest point at over 13,000 feet, it is a minor tourist mecca.  

Summer-lengthened days allowed us time to cross the river . . .

. . . and hike along a mountain's flank, enjoying the mountain views as day waned . . . 

. . . and next day to enjoy river views before a storm put a stop to it, and to spot an American dipper doing mostly what dippers do.

A quick aside here because we may be having age-related spaciness: we did not record in the blog the birds we identified for the caldera post, and I am determined to keep this up (the posting, not the spaciness).  Those birds were red-winged blackbird, kestrel, American crow, Brewer's sparrow, turkey vulture, mountain bluebird, Brewer's blackbird and great blue heron (two of them in an unlikely perched rain pond while we walked up into the trees).

For the Red River layover, we got yellow-rumped warbler, hairy woodpecker, robin, red-shafted northern flicker & mallard.

 

Wildfire! . . .

While casting around for what might be of interest for our weekish away, I spotted a Michael Martin Murphey (he of the song Wildfire origin) event - show and chuck wagon dinner, which instantly became a must-see. . .

. . . and what a superb shindig it was at his Rocking 3M Ranch way up back of beyond overlooking a serene pond.

 

I even did the me 'n the celebrity photo op thing.  It was fun talking to him; he not only knows Prescott's Whiskey Row and our very own cowboy poet Gail Steiger, but Gail's grandfather's (Gail Gardner) poem "Tying Knots in the Devil's Tail", which was one of the show's numbers.