Today was ride day around Taos so I got up around 7:30 and expected I’d hear rain on the roof but the sun was out.  I headed over to check out the complimentary breakfast with my new friends; Bob, Andy and Joe.  I think tomorrow we’ve decided to go to Michael’s, a raved-about breakfast cafe not far from our hotel.

Bob, who is one of the guys who leads rides, asked me if I wanted to join him on the Enchanted Circle ride.  It was a lovely loop that went up out of Taos, on 64 where we stopped on the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge.  The depth of it looking down from the bridge was dizzying.  Bob pointed out a car halfway down the cliff that had been left by someone trying to commit suicide.  I did take a picture (second one down)  shown here and if you look VERY closely you can see a tiny white spot on the rocks.  Amazingly enough, the guy lived.

Rio Grande Gorge

If you look close you can see the white speck of the reminents of a car.

Loving the ride

After that we went out a little further to this place where people live off everything recycled.  I mean everything.  They built their home in the earth and reinforced it with aluminum cans, old tires, whatever you can recycle.  Its called Earthship solar house and made of all natural and recycled materials. Bob says they are left over hippies from the 60’s.  I thought it was pretty cool.

After this we went back to road 522 and headed north up through Carson National Forest where we were treated to an incredible road that cut through rock face on Route 38 that went through Red River, and Bobcat Pass where we reached 9,280 feet.  We then went through Angel Fire, then stopped off at Vietnam Veteran Memorial State Park.

We got back into Taos and went to lunch after our ride.  Even though they called for rain, we managed to keep dodging the rain clouds.  We got back around 3 pm and I decided to relax in the pool before the BBQ.

After pool time, we all met out front for a group photo.  I spotted some neat bikes and got some photos.

A Classic

Lining up for our photo shoot

 We then had our BBQ and raffle prizes.  I won a t-shirt (anyone who wears an XL let me know and it’s yours) and a free night’s stay at this hotel.  After the last prize was given out, it started to pour.  We all covered our bikes and ran to our rooms.  It really came down, I was drenched after only being out in it for less than 2 minutes.  So here I am, inside my room doing this blog.  It sounds like it’s letting up so I will go out to see if our bonfire will continue tonight.  Even if it doesn’t, I had a great riding day.  Tomorrow I will check out a ghost town I found and may ride up to Ojo Caliente Mineral springs with the boys.  It all depends on weather of course.  Stay tuned for more fun tomorrow!

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