Wednesday, April, 22.

The morning was cold with frost on the ground. Later the wind came up and blew strongly until about 7 pm. Then calmed down.

We had intended to leave Santa Fe today and move to Taos but after looking at the map this morning and seeing that if we did that we would ether have to backtrack to Santa Fe or go through Colorado to get to Utah and that means going over the Rockies and some very high passes. So I decided to par for 2 more nights in Santa Fe and drive the jeep over to Taos to see what is there. As it turned out that was the right decision because we weren’t very impressed with Taos. It is basically a tourist trap. We did however, have a good lunch at a place called Michaels Kitchen.
Then we went to The Taos Pueblo. It cost us $10.00 each to get in and it was nothing but a bunch of gift shops in some mud covered apartments. If we wanted to take pictures it was another $5.00 for a permit. We walked around there for about 20 minutes and split.
Now some of you may think that I am pretty cheap complaining about giving the locals $20.00 to see there ancient native architecture and art work but it galls me to be charged an entrance fee to shop so I wouldn’t buy anything there anyway.

Next we went to see Kit Carson’s house and Museum. it was 4 bucks to get in so we paid the fee and took a look around the house, listened to a presentation and watched a video on the life of Mister Carson. I had already done extensive reading on his life so only watched some of the video.
The only pictures we took were in the house except of one that Patti took of the Taos Valley from a distance and when I shrunk that one down you couldn’t see much but here it is any way.

Here is Carson’s house, its only three rooms and there isn’t much furniture in it.
The first 2 are in the kitchen.


The next is the bedroom.

And the next is the parlor.

Next we went to see The Hacienda de Martinez. It is a living history museum but it was closed.
I am glad that we went to Taos because I now have it out of my system and don’t have to go back.
I know that some people may think that my assessment of Taos is maybe a bit harsh but I have never liked tourist towns and would much rather explore the back country or check out natural attractions or places like The Bandelier National Monument .
I’ll leave the art galleries and gift shops to others who enjoy them.