On Friday, 9/23, we left Kirtland AFB to head north. After passing near Sante Fe, we visited San Ildefonso Pueblo (Tewa language Native American tribe). Jim had been there in 1976 when visiting friends from Texas. He bought a JD Roybal corn dancer painting that he treasures. The pueblo and others are nearly closed due to COVID, as Native Americans are hit very hard by the virus. We wore masks and had our vaccination papers checked. We opted not to pay a fee to take pictures, but you can see those from others by clicking here. We walked around a bit and visited the museum, but the most important thing we did was buy a piece of pottery. It’s a lovely clay bowl, made in the traditional coil process (no potters wheel), glazed with blue-green copper oxide. The Pueblo sits very close to the Rio Grande river.
Leaving San Ildefonso, we drove to the southern outskirts of Taos for lunch. Along the way, we drove through the Rio Grande gorge and learned the river is the 3rd longest in the USA.
After that, we followed an incredibly twisty US-64 up thousands of feet to Angel Fire NM. There, in a wide valley at 8400 feet elevation, we felt the first twinges of altitude sickness that we haven’t felt since visiting Cuzco and Macchu Picchu in 1984.
