Sangre de Cristo and Good Friday

 Taos Before Dawn

Despite all we did yesterday, I woke up on Good Friday before 6 am, and couldn't go back to sleep. While Kathy got ready for the day's travels, I took off for one last walk around Taos.

Walking down the main street, Paseo del Pueblo Sur, I thought that the shops looked a lot nicer than they do during the day.

I loved the neon Cactus. I can see it in our living room. 

On the corner, in front of Cabot Plaza Mall, I noticed George Chacón's mural, The Santero. I'd walked past the corner several times, but I never saw it. To be fair, yesterday there was a crazy person standing on the corner, yelling at passers-by, and it was hard to notice anything but him.

Crossing the street at Kit Carson Boulevard, even the traffic lights caught my eye. Kathy told me to drop this one. "It's a traffic light!" she said.

 

On Taos Plaza, the Hotel La Fonda looked magical, with its neon sign, the setting moon, and the old oak towering over it.

In the historic district, I loved the matching colors on the door, the house number, the window trim and the sky. 

I even loved the plants, tree, light fixture, and window of our bungalow at the Taos Inn.

When I got back, Kathy was ready to go. Facing a long drive, we wanted to avoid the mistake we made yesterday, and eat breakfast while we had the chance. We drove up the road to Micheal's Kitchen. Those are blue corn pancakes with pinion nuts. They are so good.

On to Alamogordo

To get to Alamogordo, Google Maps wanted to route us back through Santa Fe, then down the US 25 freeway. We'd already seen that part of the country, so we fiddled with the Maps settings until it let us go through the Sangre de Cristo mountains, via Angel Fire, and down through Las Vegas, NM.

This is a beautiful drive. It was 37 degrees and there was still snow on the hillsides, under the firs and the aspens. The road was almost deserted and so we didn't have to drive too fast.

Leaving Las Vegas, we abandoned the mountains and entered the high-desert, flat ranch land that runs down to Alamogordo. There was nothing much to see, so we continued listening to Skeleton Man. Chee and Bernie, with Cowboy Dashee are at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, on the trail of a cache of diamonds attached to the left arm of a victim of the 1956 TWA crash over the Canyon. 

By 3 pm we reached the White Sands Motel, another classic, even if it isn't on Route 66. We checked into our room and went looking for something to eat. There was a Chili's nearby, and we waited for 30 minutes for a seat. The motel owner told us that his motel was only allowed to open in the last few weeks, and that restaurants were now allowed indoor dining, but at 25% capacity, which meant about 100 people at Chili's.

One of the reasons we came to Alamogordo is that twice a year, the first Saturday of April and of October, they give a tour of Trinity Site on the White Sands proving ground. This is where Oppenheimer and his crew detonated the first atomic bomb in 1945. These are the only two days in which the public is allowed to visit. There are no reservations, and usually about 300 people show up. As you can see, this year it was cancelled. Oh well, another reason for a road trip in the future.

Instead, we went out to White Sands National Monument at sunset. There, we took this selfie, in the White Sands style. We're carrying our shoes because it is so fun to walk across the cool gypsum sand in your bare feet. 

We also took this more conventional selfie at the top of one of the dunes. As clouds went over the sun, it was very easy to get disoriented in the dunes. Although we didn't go very far, we had some difficulty finding our car when it was time to leave.

The wind made amazing patterns on the sand. It was not very crowded, but there were perhaps one hundred families, climbing the dunes, or sliding down them. All of us looking for a dune that no one had yet climbed.

As the sun set on this Good Friday, Kathy and I sat looking out over the dunes and read the Good Friday story of the Crucifixion. Thinking back over the day, driving over the mountains named after the blood of Christ, we ended the day taking Communion together, just like we did on the day we were married. It was the perfect ending to a wonderful day.