Dave and Nikki's New Mexico Road Trip

Nikki and I had the pleasure of our niece Taryn's company for a week at the end of August and decided to take a few days off to visit northern New Mexico after delivering her back to her parents in Los Alamos. The following pictures were taken during the trip using my new Kodak digital camera (a DC40 in case anyone is interested in details). The results here are scaled down by a factor of around 6 from the originals but still give some idea of what we saw and where we went.

Nodding donkeys in west Texas

After a 14 hour drive through west Texas (peanuts, cattle and nodding donkeys) and north eastern New Mexico (about 200 miles of nothing at all), we arrived in Los Alamos at Brian and Lari's at 8pm in time for a soak in the hot tub. Los Alamos is 7500 feet above sea level and is the site of a national lab where lots of secret, nuclear things happen. Given the amount of deuterium and tritium floating about up there, you have to wonder when someone warns about heavy rain!

A view from the road up to Los Alamos

Brian has become very involved in woodwork recently thanks to the purchase of a very fancy scroll saw. One of his first projects was a clock with all internal components built from scratch. Pretty darn impressive (but don't tell him I said so).

We spent the next day in and around Santa Fe with Lari, Brian and Taryn. In the morning we visited the Shidoni sculpture garden - a fascinating place and well worth a visit if you happen to be in the area.

Nikki with Taryn

Brian looks smug as he stands beside his masterpiece.

At the entrance to the Shidoni shop and indoor exhibits. I fell in love with the stainless steel water sculpture on the left but you had to ask what the price was so I figured it wouldn't be within our budget.

She wasn't touching it, honest! Taryn appreciates the surface finish on a VERY large stainless steel piece in the sculpture garden.

Despite the picture I have here, many of the sculptures in the garden are not stainless steel. I suppose I just go for the shiny stuff.

Santa Fe itself is a wonderful place. I had been under the impression that adobe buildings were only really put up for postcard photographers but it turns out that pretty much all the buildings in the city are adobe.

The weather was rather mixed, with sunshine in the morning followed by ominous black clouds and a thunderstorm in the afternoon. We had lunch at the Whistling Moon and my search for the perfect crême brulée ended right there.

A random adobe house somewhere in Los Alamos (don't you just love photographers who keep detailed notes of their subjects?)

The Santa Fe Native American Arts Museum (I think) with the aforementioned ominous black cloud)

A quaint little corner near the Apple Tree Restaurant on Bent Street.

After a luxurious evening of massage and hot tubbing at 10,000 Waves - a rather excellent spa in the hills above Santa Fe, we drove up to Taos (the town rather than the ski valley which is about 25 miles away). The town is absolutely wonderful if you are at all interested in art since about 90% of the shops are art galleries.

While walking round a backstreet from the Plaza, what did we find but a real Adobe PhotoShop! (I know you can't read the sign but please take my word for it)

Nikki pretending that she isn't tired during our hike to Middlefork Lake.

Me trying not to keel over with exhaustion just before the start of the difficult part of the climb.

The highlight of the trip came on our final day when we drove up to Red River and did some hiking. Starting at somewhere over 10,000 feet, we walked to Middlefork Lake via some wonderful, narrow, steep, tiring forest paths. The walk to the lake was about 3 miles but it felt like 10 given the thin air!

On the way and at the lake itself, the views were spectacular and the peace and quiet beautiful. We picniced on the far side of the lake while fending off hordes of chipmunks (which are still cute despite their attempts to steal our lunches) then walked back around the other side of the lake and down again.

At the lake. We were there on a weekday and didn't see a single person between leaving the car and getting back.

My first sight of a beaver's lodge. Nikki reckons she saw the beaver but I didn't.

A view of the mountain behind the lake. Something to consider climbing next time?