Exploring | The High Road

Our house lies in a desert valley, tucked quietly under the shadow of the Sandia. Our yard, sand. Our neighborhoods lined with cacti and yucca trees. Rio Rancho bustles with busy lives - families weaving between strip malls, fast food restaurants, and the perfectly manicured parks dotted across the subdivision maps.

But north of us lies Santa Fe, and above that, Taos. The High Road weaves a path out of Santa Fe, among the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. On our weekend journey, the road was lined with pilgrims making a hundred mile trek in honor of Easter.

The High Road weaves through desert, forest, and pueblo lands, many areas still dotted with snow. Along its path, galleries, eateries and tiny villages. From Nambe to Chimayo, Cordova to Truches - a collection of adobe houses built quite precariously on a cliff face.

At the road's end, Taos. Settled by Spanish colonists in the early 18th century, Taos now houses to ski life, colorful shops, and many places to find a good cup of coffee. For us, an afternoon of admiring leather moccasins, savoring indian tacos at Michaels kitchen, and an iced chai latte at World Cup Taos.

Further on, the Rio Grande carves its way through the grounds of northern New Mexico. A bridge spans the 1280 feet across the gorge and provides the brave with an opportunity to jut out over a river which could carry one the entire way to the gulf . I gracefully poised myself behind my camera lens and tried to convince myself that it wasn't truly 585 feet to the water below.

As we drove more than one hundred miles home, my eyes fell shut with the heaviness of altitude change. I woke unsure of the trip, not sure if the purple of the mountains or the turquoise of the Rio Grande were just a dream.