The Rio Grande Gorge Bridge, near Taos. Photo courtesy of Sean Pavone and Alamy Stock Photo.
From Santa Fe to Taos: A New Mexico road trip
Justin GoldmanJanuary 12, 2024
It’s my girlfriend’s birthday weekend and I decided to take her for a drive through the Land of Enchantment from Santa Fe to Taos. We begin our New Mexico road trip in Santa Fe, the oldest capital city in the country. We browse the turquoise and silver–filled gift shops around the historic Santa Fe Plaza and then we pop into Cafe Pasqual’s for breakfast burritos and huevos rancheros.
As the morning sun begins to warm the mountain air, we slide into our rental car and head north on U.S. Route 84. We pass through small towns and scrubby high desert for about an hour before dipping down into the Chama Valley. The artist Georgia O’Keeffe is synonymous with New Mexico. We stop by the O’Keeffe Welcome Center in Abiquiú to take in the current exhibit, Artful Living: O’Keeffe & Modern Design. Next, we're escorted up the hill to the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum Home & Studio. The painter bought a deteriorating hacienda in 1945 and fixed it up, splitting her time between here and a house on the nearby Ghost Ranch for most of the next four decades. We’ve booked the Pita’s Tour, led by Agapita “Pita” Lopez whose grandfather, mother and brothers worked for O’Keeffe. Lopez leads us through the house, showing us the artist’s garden, living room and studio. We linger in the modest bedroom, taking in the view of the valley that inspired paintings like Winter Cottonwoods East V, 1954 and Winter Road I, 1963.
Our minds are stimulated, but our bodies could use some relaxation, so we head to Ojo Caliente Mineral Springs Resort & Spa. Opened in 1868, the spa has pools that are rich with healing minerals like lithia, soda and iron. We’ve reserved an hour in a private soaking pool, which we hop in and out of as we get used to the heat. Then we do a circuit of the communal pools, feeling our muscles unwind.
After doubling back to New Mexico State Road 68, we make a quick pit stop at Vivác Winery for a glass of estate-grown Petit Verdot. The light is beginning to get low, so we keep on up the road, the soaring Sangre de Cristo Mountains on our right and the plummeting Rio Grande Gorge on our left. As night falls, we pass through historic downtown Taos and pull up to The Love Apple, a charming restaurant in a converted 19th-century chapel. We delight in a caramelized onion and apple quesadilla, pan-seared duck and polenta Bolognese.
Seeking some solitude, we’ve booked the Taos Skybox, an Airbnb consisting of three prefab units set on the high-desert plain. We drop our bags inside our cabin, where I find a guitar hanging on the wall, and then slide into the Adirondack chairs on the deck to gaze up at the stars. I strum the guitar and sing “Home on the Range”—and that’s just how we feel.