We took a day trip to travel the Turquoise Trail. You can see the official link here. It's a national scenic byway that runs from Albuquerque to Santa Fe (about 45 miles).
It was a lovely drive. I don't seem to ever get tired of the New Mexico scenery. The Turquoise Trail passes through several small towns with gift shops, galleries and restaurants. Our first stop was in Golden to visit Henderson Store. Beautiful Southwestern Indian Jewelry, Pottery and Rugs. We bought a few trinkets as gifts and I was very pleased with the selection, prices and service. We'll definitely be going back there before we leave to buy some Christmas gifts...and maybe a couple things for ourselves.
Next we stopped in Madrid which had a large number of shops and restaurants, including a diner that was featured in the movie Wild Hogs. We didn't go there. The brochure listed a shop called Weasel & Fitz which appealed to me for obvious reasons, but they were closed. By then it was getting hot, I had to pee (all the businesses had "no public restrooms" signs which didn't make me or my bladder feel particularly welcome) so we left Madrid without much regret.
The trail is sort of shaped like a wishbone with Santa Fe at the apex. We didn't feel like going all the way to Santa Fe to catch the highway, so we took a road that would cross over to the highway we wanted. The map said that part of the road was an unpaved, seasonal road, but we took it anyway.
Picture the two of us jammed into the red Chevy Aveo winding our way up a mountain trail that was more stone than gravel and mostly packed dirt. Again, more spectacular scenery and this time we were really close to it since it was basically a one lane road between the mountains and rocks.
We encountered a pick up truck coming from the opposite direction on a part of the road wide enough for two vehicles. The other driver waved for us to stop. "There's a big patch of mud about a quarter mile ahead," he said, then glanced down from his big pick up at our fuel efficient Chevy. "I don't think you guys will make it."
Rather than take offense, we took his advice and turned around, retracing our steps.
And, boy are we glad we did because a few miles after we returned to the paved highway we found a wonderful place for lunch.
Tune in next time to hear all the details.
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