Travel Diary: 2023 Tour through New Mexico - Part 2
After taking in the sights in Taos, we drove a 56-mile road south to Santa Fe known as the High Road to Taos. It's a twisty-turny road that cuts through the Sangre de Cristo Mountains and follows the Rio Grande most of the way. Putting along slowly in the van gave us LOTS of time to take in the views, lol.
Thanks again to the iOverlander app, we found a designated dispersed camping area on BLM land northwest of Santa Fe known as Caja del Rio, just outside of town. Instead of camping in the designated area with a number of other campers, however, we continued down the dirt road a bit. We found a quiet spot we could have all to ourselves tucked in between piñon pines & junipers.
Relaxing at our nice quiet camp.
A drone shot of the dirt road into camp.
We were fearing the worst regarding our van. We just had that feeling. However, we tried not to let those thoughts spoil our time relaxing at camp. There was a chance that it could be our final van camp for the week.
It’s a dance party, y’all!
That evening, we hiked around the area a bit, and returned to camp to have our own little dance party. After we both had a shower, we grilled some hamburgers and tossed back a handful of Pacifico beers. We were doing anything we could to stay busy, so as not to think about our van troubles.
While Becky was showering, a couple guys rode up on some ATVs! She had to hop in & hide pretty quickly, lmao.
We never know when our next opportunity to shower is coming, so we take advantage any chance we get.
Monday morning, I woke early to phone the auto shop, F.A.S.T. Foreign Auto. From the very beginning of the conversation, I felt like we were taking Brakayla to the right people. They asked all the right questions. For example: Was the van’s engine original, or had it been converted to a Subaru or Bostig? They told us to bring it by immediately, and they would look at it that day. We felt really good about them.
We were VERY anxious to find news about the van. It was just the beginning of the New Mexico roadtrip we had been planning for ALL YEAR. What if we couldn’t do anything we had been planning to do?!
We shared a few thoughts in the video above before taking our Vanagon to the shop.
We were brainstorming various plans on how we would continue our week off work if we got some bad news. With our sleeping arrangements now in limbo, many questions arose such as:
Do we rent a vehicle and continue as planned, but instead sleeping in our tent? (We ALWAYS pack a tent to have a Plan B.)
Will our van be repaired before we have to return to work?
Do we just spend the week in Santa Fe and fly home?
With all these questions weighing on our minds, we needed to do something to pass the time in Santa Fe while we waited for the news…MEOW WOLF was the obvious answer! I’ll tell you about that in the next blog entry.
-Andrew