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19th Oct 2005
The Abominable Snowmansion
Wednesday, 19th October, 2005
A spectacular thunder storm passed through early this morning, lighting up the sky and rolling thunder around the town. All of us were awake at some point as it neared and then passed into the distance.
Anne decided that we were leaving at 8 this morning; a fresh, early start for Taos.
Luckily we didn’t wake up til about then and then there was breakfast … and then there was a last minute dash to the shops ... but we finally got underway just about 11 o’clock.
A straight forward drive to Taos; through Colorado Springs.
We drove under grey skies which gradually lifted as we got further south and west and by the time we reached Taos it was clear and we began to think in terms of sunsets.
We drove through town and went in search of the Ranchos Church, which is a couple of miles to the south and has been immortalised by successive artists and photographers such as O’Keefe, Adams, Strand and Weston.
Its fifty yards from the road and has a bit of a parking lot in front of it and load of wires trailing across the vista – avoidable if you want to. I re-took Strand and Adams and then we explored a little further and the four photographers in our party set about the squat adobe curves. Inside, we met the minister Francis O’Malley from Glasgow ! Its unremarkable inside and the famous luminescent painting of Christ (which glows in the dark in the image of a cross over his left shoulder has been moved to a building next door and is only viewable at certain times.
We went back through town and then headed out slightly for the sunset which touched the horizon at about the time we ended up in Arroyo Secco and at the Abominable Snowmansion; our hostel lodgings for the next couple of days.
After lugging our stuff inside and the boys vowing and declaring that they weren’t going anywhere near the shower in their room, we headed back into town for a meal at Doc Martins at the Taos Inn.
Great food, great wine but a loud and slightly over-powering hostess. There was a general euphoria about our table and they made the mistake of plunking us sort of centre stage, in the middle of the restaurant. Anyway, we did our best to entertain … we can’t help it if they didn’t think our jokes were as funny as we did!
From a food point of view, steaks mainly; great big ones and hardly cooked at all. The wine was local and tasty, but for me the most remarkable item extra to the menu was a quite spectacular rice pudding; fantastic.
Back in the dark to meet our pot-smoking compadres and plan for tomorrow
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