A Day In Taos

The end of a vacation, that last day especially, can be...well, kind of a bummer. I was dead set on making our last day on the road memorable. We planned on driving through the night (yet again) so we would get home Saturday morning. This left us plenty of time to explore. We had many options: head Northeast and make a stop at America's second largest canyon at Palo Duro in Texas, with fun stops throughout Oklahoma. Or we could go North. It added a few more hours onto our overall time on the road, BUT the minis and I would get a chance to show Hubs some of our favorite things from our time in northern New Mexico.

 Obviously, since the title of this post is A Day In Taos, we went with option two. We grabbed donuts as we drove out of Roswell and then enjoyed a gorgeous drive from Roswell, through Santa Fe, and the low road into Taos. Once in Taos, we knew just what we wanted to do.

We got food and tres leches cake from Guadallajara Grill and had a picnic alongside the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge rest area. It was a perfect spot to stretch our legs and walk on the trail next to the gorge. I could easily go back to this spot in Taos and hike the entire trail along the gorge (something time did not allow us either visit).

Next, we drove around looking at the Earth houses (Earthships) and finally ended at Black Rock Hot Springs. Once again, I missed my first turn, but the crazy drive is worth it. It's beautiful and slightly terrifying with no guardrails. We had to park at the bottom of the Gorge, walk up, only to hike back down to the hot springs. This time around, the lower springs were freezing cold (just like the river), but the upper springs were nice and hot. 

I was the ever proud parent as my children explained to a grown women sitting in the springs with them that the rocks surrounding us, the very rocks we were sitting on, were lava rocks, and thus, the reason for the hot springs. 

No one wanted to explore the cave with me.

The hot springs were a great way to end our road trip adventure and to ready ourselves to drive through yet another night. The drive home was actually easy. Even driving in the dark in southeast Colorado was beautiful. We've now been to Taos twice and it is one of those places I'd go back to again in a heartbeat. There's still so much of New Mexico we'd like to explore as well. The Northwest region of the state has Aztec ruins, cliff dwells, and hiking. Another time, another road trip for all of that!