A rockin' day trip

Friday I drove over to Maxwell to take Jean M. to lunch in Raton and to catch up on all the news. I decided to go through Taos Canyon to the Moreno Valley and through Cimarron Canyon instead of going up I-25.

There's still a lot of snow in Taos Canyon on the north-facing slopes. Some of the homes were still snowbound. Here's a fence in Taos Canyon.

I drove into Angel Fire, which is a bit of Aspen in northern New Mexico. It seems to have lost the funky charm it had when I lived in Maxwell and is now upscale and sort of precious. The ground throughout the Moreno Valley was saturated, as you can see from this image, which I took just north of Angel Fire.

I drove into Eagle Nest, which is still the way it's always been: a place to rent skis and gear for a lot less money than you'd pay in Angel Fire, get an inexpensive lunch, and poke around in little shops for tchotchkes and antiques. Izzy, I found that set of The Children's Hour in Eagle Nest.

Here are Eagle Nest Lake, which is beginning to thaw, and Wheeler Peak, which isn't. You can see the abandoned Eagle Nest Lodge at the lower right.

From Eagle Nest, you drop down into Cimarron Canyon. In the summer it's full of fishermen and campers, but Friday I met only one guy who was fishing. I stopped at the Palisades.

Here's the information marker for the geology geeks among us.

Maxwell continues to linger. Only 75 kids are in the whole school, kindergarten through 12th grade. My nemesis from my last year there, who was the office administrator and the superintendent's niece and who strutted around like a little cadet, is now the mayor. Many of my former students are grandparents. I drove by Fidel's Barber Shop, which is an 8 x 10 Morgan building. Fidel was sitting in there with the door open. When I drove by last year, he was sitting in there with the door open. When he asks you how you want your hair cut, he means, "Do you want it cut fast or slow?"

If you want good northern New Mexican food, Raton isn't the place to get it. There's nothing like a good chicken burrito, and what I had was nothing like a good chicken burrito.

The good news is that NM 505 is paved all the way to Colfax.

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