New Mexico Vacation, Day Four--The Road to Santa Fe and beyond

We left Albuquerque this morning to head north to Santa Fe where we are going to spend the next couple of days. We ended up going all of the way to Taos, north of Santa Fe on two scenic roads, the Turquoise Trail and the High Road to Taos. We were in no hurry and stopped when we wanted to in little towns, visitor centers, or just to enjoy the scenery along the way.  However, with forest fires in the area, many of the mountains we saw were in a haze. The most memorable stop we made was at the very beginning of our trek at the Tinkertown Museum.

The Tinkertown Museum is the work of one man, Ross Ward.  He was a carver, painter, collector, and a visionary like no other. The museum is built out of bottles and has an almost overwhelming display of things to look at everywhere. It was amazing.

Here are a few pictures from our day. For both the Tinkertown Museum and the scenery shots, the pictures don't do them justice.

The parking lot at Tinkertown was decorated almost as much as the inside of the museum.

The museum was in a house made from bottles and had 22 rooms.

The creator of the museum carved all of the figures in these scenes.

Food for thought from Ross Ward.

This church is said to contain a well of healing dirt. Because of this, over 300,000 people make a pilgrimage to it each year. It was closed when we got there, so we assumed that the dirt on our shoes from walking around outside would work also.

Rio Grande Gorge near Taos (yes, this is the same Rio Grande that is the border between Texas and Mexico - its headwaters are in northern New Mexico and southern Colorado.)

The haze in the mountains is smoke from nearby forest fires. At these high elevations near Taos, most everything is green.

We are back to desert landscapes at lower elevations near Santa Fe.