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After a flight out of LaGuardia through Dallas we landed in Santa Fe, an ancient city nestled at 7000 feet in the foothills of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains . The city was established in 1610 and is the oldest capital city in the United States. Predating the settlement of Santa Fe is the culture of the native American pueblos. A popular place to visit is Taos Pueblo, which can be reached within an hour's drive heading north from the Santa Fe Regional Airport.
We started from Los Alamos where we stayed overnight, driving directly to Espanola. Not relying on the GPS, we made the wrong turn and around the mountain along Interstate 84 to Lake Abiquiu. I just realized that we have come too far for a supposedly 30-minute ride to Taos Pueblo. We have been riding through plains and mountain ranges for over an hour enjoying the adobe cliffs at the side of the mountains - as if we were enchanted. I finally decided to pull over and ask directions from a local. We were told we were on the other side of the mountain opposite to our destination. That's no problem. I just had to go over Wheeler Peak for a drive over the finest mountain scenery I've seen lately. We went through Carson National Forest elevating from 6,000 to 13,000 feet, the highest in New Mexico. I didn't really regret that extra 2-hour drive; and proceeded towards the bridge above the Gorge of Rio Grande. From the bridge, we were a few minutes away to Taos Pueblo. It's considered to be the oldest continuously inhabited community in the US. Legends and detailed oral history trace its existence "back to the beginning of evolution of man and all of creation," so the local natives say.
The town of Los Alamos has also a place in history. During World War II, the most prominent physicists in the world gathered in the sacred Jemez mountains at a top secret facility called Los Alamos, "The Cottonwoods", to develop the atomic bomb. The Manhattan Project, as we all know, relocated the scientists building the world's first atomic bomb moved their plutonium processing operations here. The Los Alamos National Laboratory, the major employer of this town unknown to most of us, is still a major force in the research and discovery of modern science and technology. Projects from nuclear warfare, environmental studies, drugs, to outer space are still being studied in these existing labs. A government pass is required to get around these facilities.
A note to renting a car to get around and also, suggestions for hotel accomodations: I recommend getting a car off-site ... and booking a hotel the next town over ...this would be easier on your wallet. We stayed at Los Alamos, which is located approximately 35 miles north from The Plaza in Santa Fe. The Plaza is at the center of the city where most of the activities - restaurants, museums, galleries, sidewalk cafes, sidewalk vendors, government buildings, churches and a park to stretch your legs. These are all condensed within a three-mile square. Today, the high desert of Santa Fe and Northern New Mexico are, of course, physically part of the American landscape but not always strictly of America. The Pueblo, Spanish, and Anglo cultures interweave the old with the new creating a rich, often mystifying "Land of Enchantment".
