Said goodbye to Taos this morning. We had a few good days here.

We took a small detour to Bandelier National Park on the way. The drive in was … Ready for it … awesome! But, we were not prepared for the greater awesomeness of the park itself. Unbelievable sheer cliffs down to a pretty valley with a stream running through it. The Anasazi lived here in the valley about 10,000 years ago. These were people who lived in the canyon walls in caves turned into homes. This was a piece of history I have always wanted to see. I was able to climb up a ladder on the side of the canyon wall and look into a living space. We were high up on the canyon wall and Mahgrit had a little trouble with her fear of height but she troopered on through. This was another national park for free on my senior pass whoo hoo!

We left Bandelier and passed through Santa Fe on the way to Alburquerque. Let me tell you the Santa Fe drivers are as bad or worse than NE drivers.

We made it through Santa Fe and continued our drive on the turquoise highway a scenic route. It was another relaxing and pretty drive through the countryside. We were told to stop in Madrid and look around which we did. However, the people were not as friendly as we have become used to. Also there were no sidewalks and it was not easy to get around. Also, they would not let people use their facilities. They had porta-potties for visitors to use. Not very tourist friendly.

We are going to hang around here for the weekend. We don’t want to fight the crowds over the Memorial Day Weekend and getting reservations where we want them is difficult. We might even spend an afternoon at the pool and hot tub.