Taos-ism

New Mexico is cold. Not the San Francisco type of cold that I actually look forward to, but the Boston cold that makes my hate life and my surroundings. That being said, Taos, NM is actually a pretty cool place. It is generally considered to be an aging hippy/artsy/tourist trap sort of place and Taos seemed to live up to all of these stereotypes. There were plenty of silver haired, tye dye clad septegenarians walking on streets that were filled with art galleries, which contained art that only a tourist would buy.

When we got into town we went straight for a lunch spot called Orlando's that sources had informed us served the best New Mexican cuisine. NM cuisine is like mexican food, but a little less interesting and not very spicy. Regardless, we each had tasty burritos, mylinh shrimp (b/c she's short) and me chicken (b/c I lack courage), both were covered with green and red sauce, oh so cleverly named "Christmas" style. We then set off to find a place to stay for the night.
We had originally planned on camping in the Cimarron Canyon State Park, but since it was almost an hour away this would have prevented us from seeing Taos before we had to go claim our tent spot and cook dinner over a fire. We tried pricing hotels in the area, which are reasonably priced for an average tourist, but for us cheapos the $50 they were charging was far too much.

We ended up compromising and staying at an RV and Tent Park in town that is actually really nice (read: much needed hot showers). While it was below freezing out we were happy to be surrounded by fences and not subject to the wind. In fact, it was so cold that both our car and tent frosted over and we later saw snow on the side of the road. Before we left on our road trip I promised Mylinh that the weather would be nice, specifically I said, "all the bums go south for the winter, so the weather must be warm." Clearly we weren't south enough.

To round out our day we headed off to a hot spring spa that my parent's suggested. It was just what we needed. There is nothing like dipping into a hot bath of spring water on a freezing cold evening. The baths included such oddities as an arsenic bath, iron bath and soda bath. They were each supposed to have some magical properties like making you invincible Wolverine style. Most importantly we were able to take a shower - something we hadn't been afforded in a couple of days. It was well worth the drive out there.

We woke up after our freezing cold night, warmed up our car, got the oil changed and headed off through the backroads of the New Mexican mountians into Texas.

Taos Pictures