DucatiSPS

After driving around Europe in Blue Sky, we decided she was due for another road trip (and to beat the Texas heat, 100 degrees sucks). So booked us into the Santa Fe Four Seasons, loaded up the car (amazing how much stuff you can actually fit in there) and hit the road. Wife wasn't thrilled about the destination, figured there wouldn't be much to do or see, and you know..desert. Boy were we wrong. The country out there is beautiful, peaceful, and you tend to forget that there are places you can head that don't have 9 million people living around you. Some pics from the trip:


Clean, loaded and ready to go

About 4 hours in, we are breaking for lunch in the car just outside of Lubbock

Found some mildly twisty roads in the middle of New Mexico, had to stretch our legs for a bit

At Billy the Kid's grave. Not really worth it, except for this cool little rock in the parking lot.

First day in Santa Fe we went hiking in Frijoles Canyon which had amazingly well preserved ancient Pueblos

Exploring the dwellings

All of the material in the canyon is called Tuff - it's volcanic residue that is porous and allowed the people to carve out their homes

Off for a bit of art browsing and shopping in Santa Fe. Gotta say I love these new parking meters that work by app, and tell you when you're expiring.

Can't visit Santa Fe without stopping by Lucchese boots.

Day two was white water rafting on the Rio Grande. We stayed in some of the tamer waters, no class IV's for us.

Our intrepid guide Miles. Definitely worth the trip, and the hour drive there up the river valley was beautiful.

This is Taos Pueblo - it's the oldest continuously occupied Pueblo in the USA. Been here for about 1000 years. No electricity or running water.

Like most native populations, they had a sad history of oppression, first by Spain, then by US, and the stories are heartbreaking. The ending good news is that they are the first people who actually had native lands returned to them by US government in 1970.

From the Pueblo, we headed up to Taos ski area to see what has changed since we skied here 25 years ago (a bunch, except for the excellent twisty road in, that was the same). Our car, if you didn't know, is named after our Sheltie, Blue Sky (who, incidentally is named after a bowl in Vail called Blue Sky Basin). Blue's brother is Bear (another Sheltie), hence the picture.

On the drive back down from Taos we had the top off and got hammered by a rainstorm. We found as long as we kept the speed around 50-70 almost no water made it into the cabin. Top down rain cruisin

My absolute favorite picture from the road trip.

Santa Fe treated us to a rainbow at the hotel on our last night.

I think it is a Texas Law that you are not allowed to do a road trip in our State without a stop by Buc-ee's.

What better way to finish out the trip than with some chicken fried steak at Babe's in Roanoke Texas.

Love this sign.

Now, that's some stats. On the way back, including traffic and city driving for a lunch stop, we pulled 79 mph, and 23.2 mpg. This little car is awesome.

We hit migrating dragon flies and several swarms of grasshoppers, so she got a two hour bath once we were home. Oh and we caught a nasty rock by Amarillo, so a new windshield in incoming.

abarthguy

Wow! What an awesome road trip!
One of the reasons for getting my '17 Boxster was to do epic tours like this.