The Severed Cortex

We're up early for the 8:15 breakfast. Eldon has fresh fruit, yogurt, banana pancakes and bacon plus juice and coffee. It's all very good. The company around the table consisted of a retired couple from Annapolis, MD (the wife irritated the hell out of me, but that's not hard to do first thing in the morning), three older women and one of their daughters, and a young couple from Durango, CO who were in Taos to rock climb. Food was fantastic, company was fine despite the minor irritation.
We pack our stuff and head to Cid's grocery to pick up picnic supplies for the drive, but unfortunately Cid's is closed on Sunday. So, we head back over to the other side of town to Albertson's. We find everything we need except for one thing. They don't sell wine until noon. We settle for San Pellegrino.

Off we had to the other side of the state.

First stop is the Rio Grande Gorge bridge just outside of Taos. Kick ass scenery, and we walk out on the bridge to take pictures of the gorge, but I'm totally freaked out by the height and the way it shakes as the cars go by. I wind up walking back to the car and driving across. Nancy has no problem with it and walks completely across the bridge, stopping to take pictures along the way. After a preemptory pee at the rest area located on the other side of the bridge, we head out for points west. The scenery is picture perfect high desert, but the coolest thing is that there are hundreds of tarantulas crossing the road. Some were small, but some were almost as big as your fist. Weird stuff. I wanted to stop and check them out but Nancy thought I was an idiot for wanting to. I guess it would have been pretty stupid only if I had gotten bit. Barring a spider bite, it would have been kick ass cool.
The drive through the San Juan mountains was also outstanding. Even Tierra Amarilla to Chama was pretty cool too, but once we were west of Chama it was just downright ugly. Around 2:30 we reached Navajo Dam where we decide to break for a picnic lunch. The lake is very nice looking, but it's a little too chilly for us to be sitting in the 20+ mph wind. We munch down the vittles quickly and wonder why in the hell people would want to launch a boat on the lake today. The temps were in the low 60's but with the wind it felt much cooler. It wouldn't have been worth it to me to be damn chilly and wrestle a trolling motor all day.

Our original plan was to head up to Durango then drive back down to Farmington, NM where we had reservations, but we at this point we realized that it might make more sense to go check in first, then head to Durango. We take the back way into Farmington along the San Juan River, one of the finest fly fishing streams in America by the way. We saw several people hip deep in the river, but it couldn't have been easy casting in all that wind. Those fishing closer to the dam probably had a better chance than those farther downstream. I would have liked to have given it a try if I had the chance. Maybe next time.

The GPS leads us to our next bed and breakfast, The Casa Blanca Inn. It's a hidden gem of a spot in the middle of a residential neighborhood and our room, The Crownpoint Suite, is very nice; Southwestern style furnishings, refrigerator, stove, dishwasher, luxury bath, heated ceramic tile, fireplace, etc. We stow our gear, then head north to Durango. Once we cross the Colorado border, incidentally the first time I've ever set foot in Colorado, the scenery gets significantly better. It's as if at border drawing time the Coloradoans said, "We don't want any part of that mess south of this line.". Can't say as I blame them.

Durango is a pretty cool kitschy little town. We walk up and down the five or six block main street looking in store windows and perusing menus of the dozen or so eateries. What we notice most of all is that there are a lot of real estate agencies. Some sell high end properties and some sell really, really high end properties. Oh well, so much for buying a retirement home in Durango.
We settle on a restaurant called Ken & Sue's. Nancy orders pistachio crusted halibut with sweet potatoes and I order the strip steak with maple mustard glaze and potatoes. What I wind up with instead is the special of the day, skirt steak in a Cabernet sauce and garlic mashed potatoes with tobacco onions. The waitress apologizes for the mis-steak (rim shot), but this was actually my second choice anyway so I told her I was OK with it. It was really good, even if it wasn't what I ordered. I wash it down with a local microbrew, SKA true blonde ale. Good beer. We head over to the Starbucks so I can get the obligatory Americano for the road. On the way out of town we stop at two grocery stores hoping to pick up a bottle of wine. Apparently you can't buy wine in a grocery store in Colorado so we head back to New Mexico. In the town of Aztec, we stop at a Safeway for the bottle of wine. Nancy went in and twenty minutes later ... yes, twenty minutes, she said it was an ordeal ... we have a bottle of a Santa Fe vintage.
We find our way back to the Casa Blanca where we discover the heat isn't working. It's in the 40's outside and while I'm OK with it, it's too cold for Nancy. We call the manager, but we realize quickly that it's kind of out of her control. We decide to muddle through it.

The wine was terrible.