Since the longest stretch of time we can travel is still in the summer, we often try to get somewhere a little cooler than Texas. In this case, we decided to stay in the South and head “up” to get to cooler climes – Northern New Mexico, with elevations above 6000 ft. We owed Viki’s dad a visit, so we started our trip from Austin, drove northwest into New Mexico, spent two weeks in the area, then meandered east through the Texas panhandle and back to our home base in Sherman, TX. You’ll notice a theme in this trip, and indeed many of our trips: We visit a lot of wineries and breweries. 🙂
In Austin, we spent two days visiting with friends and family, including a stop at a local winery, Bent Oak Winery, where we had some excellent wines and took home a bottle for later. Monday morning, we headed fairly directly to Santa Fe, NM (with a quick overnight at a Walmart) and got into our site at Los Sueños RV Park about midday on Wednesday. The first order of business was some New Mexican fare – lunch included some very good Chile Rellenos. Roger was planning a mobile brewing experiment on this trip (more in a later post), so we next headed over to The Santa Fe Honey Salon where we tried a few interesting honeys and came away with a gallon of tasty Mesquite honey for mead-making. We finished our afternoon with a quick stop at the New Mexico Hard Cider taproom, then back to the rig for some down time.
We visited two breweries in the evening. Tumbleroot Brewery and Distillery was first (Viki had a mojito and Roger a reposado tequila). This is really nice place with a beautiful patio area. We wanted to go back to try the beers, but didn’t make it. Next was Second Street Brewery. They have a great deck where we enjoyed a few pints, the cool night air, and chatting with an interesting young women who had recently moved up from Albuquerque to work at the local children’s museum.
The next day we had a late breakfast of yummy breakfast burritos at Tia Sophia’s and wandered around the plaza looking in at various shops (managing to only buy some nice olive oil and vinegar). Next was another brewery, Blue Corn Cafe and Brewery, where we had a tasting flight and enjoyed a pint on the roof-top patio. In the evening we went to Santa Fe Brewing and had a beer with sliders from the restaurant next door.
Early the next morning, we headed north to Ojo Caliente Mineral Springs and Spa where we had reserved a couple’s spa package. It’s a nice place, but perhaps it’s best enjoyed during cooler weather or at least cooler parts of the day. We stayed the night in the on-site campground and took off in the morning headed for some BLM campgrounds about 50 miles away.
For the next several days, we stayed in the Pilar Campground of the Orilla Verde Recreation Area. Orilla Verde includes 6 camping areas ranging from very primitive to pull through sites with water and electric. We stayed in one of the latter for $15/night. Orilla Verde protects part of the Rio Grande Gorge. At this point, The Rio Grande River has barely started it’s 1900 mile trip from Colorado to the Gulf of Mexico and it’s shallow and only about 20-40’ across, but fairly fast (which attracts some rafting traffic). Over time, it has carved a beautiful, 800’ deep slice into the Taos Plateau. It’s quite lovely and very quiet (no cell phone service and minimal traffic, despite the rafting company vans). For most of our stay, there were only 2 or 3 sites occupied in the campground – including the camp host and us! We really enjoyed the peace and quiet, but we were also glad that we were only a few miles from Dixon, NM with wineries and breweries (and Wi-Fi!), and 25 miles from Taos with so much more.
We spent a lot of our time just sitting in the shade of our awning, reading, and enjoying the space. The days were fairly hot, but with the very dry air and cool nights, we never felt the need for air conditioning. The bugs were pretty active at night (no mosquitoes – just annoying flies) so we usually retreated indoors before dark. However, we didn’t only sit and read! Some of our more active moments included:
- A trip across the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge
This Bighorn wanted to be sure we got his Best Side
- Hiking in the Gorge
- Plus a visit to Blue Heron Brewing, wandering the Plaza in Taos (and another trip to Taos Mesa Brewing), and making new RV friends in Taos (Hi guys! We’ll see you in October).
We really enjoyed our stay in Orilla Verde, so when it was time to move on we were a bit sad to say goodbye (We’ll be back!). However, we were also excited about our next destination – Red River, NM. The high desert country we’d been in is very nice, but we looked forward to true mountains with trees!
We arrived in Red River and checked in for our reserved week at Road Runner RV Resort. The park is very nice, but, as the name implies, has some extra amenities and some extra expense. It was the nicest park in the small town, by a quite a bit, and the “adults only” section has the advantage of being further back in the park with less traffic, larger spaces, and very quiet. We definitely liked the park, even if we didn’t really need or want most of the “extras.”
For our first stop in the area, we were excited to try out a brand new brewery that had opened only two weeks before – Red River Brewing Company. We ended up spending a lot of time at RRBC, so we’ll make some general comments up front. This brew pub is doing things right! All the beers we tried (at least 7 different styles) were very well made and spot-on for the style. The food is creative, well-prepared, and well-presented (just plain good).
The service was excellent and the staff very friendly – we got to a first name basis with a few (Hi, Beth and Jennifer!). The space is attractive and comfortable. Overall, Red River Brewing Company was a highlight of our stay in the area, even with all the natural beauty of the place.
Our first two days in Red River, we mostly stayed around our campsite (reading, listening to the whistling pines, and watching the hummingbirds zoom around), with a nightly trip into “town” to look around and visit RRBC. On Friday, we headed down to Taos (still only about 36 miles away) to run some errands and visit another Taos Mesa Brewing location, the taproom downtown. We enjoyed hanging out there for quite awhile. Roger traded stories with a full-time RVer from Texas and Viki made friends with a very interesting local man (70 years old, Native American, Marine vet, retired high school science teacher) and ended up working crossword puzzles with him for about an hour. From there, we headed east toward Angel Fire to complete the “Enchanted Circle” Highway. In Angel Fire, we stopped in at Enchanted Circle Brewing and enjoyed a pint and met an interesting local couple, and later visited with a local aspiring writer for well over an hour.
Red River is a ski town in the winter, so the next day we rode the ski lift to the top of the mountain (elevation ~10,100 ft). We spent a few hours hiking around the mountaintop, having a picnic lunch, and taking pictures. We finished the outing with another stop at RRBC. Sunday, we drove back down to Angel Fire (about 38 miles) to visit the Farmer’s Market (Roger made another honey/mead contact!), and then met up with our new friends Larry and Ray for lunch.
We had thought we might find a spot to boondock in the Forest (there are several established dispersed camping
areas around) and stay another day in the mountains, but because of the dry conditions and extreme fire danger, nearly all the USFS roads were closed. This gave us the opportunity to make a little headway back east and add a stop at Capulin Volcano. We have driven by the volcanic features in northeast New Mexico many times, but had never stopped. We overnighted at the very simple, but adequate, Capulin RV Park and headed to the volcano in the morning. This is a surprising little gem in the middle of the plains. Capulin was active about
60,000 years ago and the cinder cone still rises up over 1000’ from the surrounding plains (which are actually the lava flows from the last eruptions). The hike around the crater rim and then down into the mouth is really interesting and provides some great views. That afternoon, we drove on to the Bar Z Winery in Canyon, TX which is a Harvest Hosts location. We had a lovely time trying their wines and visiting with Sarah at the bar. She was interested in our mead making and we offered to let her try some one day. We spent a quiet night parked next to the winery.
The next day, we drove the short distance to Lubbock for a quick visit with Viki’s brother and his family. We got settled in at the Loop Two Eight Nine RV Park, and since the family were still working, we headed off for a visit to McPherson Cellars. We hadn’t realized it, but McPherson is actually a fairly large winery and we can buy their wines in local stores back home. They do have some nice wines and we picked up a bottle for dinner. We met Viki’s family at a local Italian place where we had a tasty dinner, and then visited with them into the evening. We took off early the next day and spent much of the morning debating if we should push on through to home or make a stop over. In the end, we decided to stay a night near Wichita Falls. Going through town we stopped at Horseshoe Bend Cellars (formerly Wichita Falls Winery – new owners). We tried several of their wines, including a couple of meads. They have a long way to go, but they have a decent start. We stayed at a little city RV park a few more miles down the road in Henrietta (Hapgood Park). It was very cheap ($15) with full hook-ups, but it was very desolate. We also had some electrical problems, but that could have been because of our AC units trying to keep up with 100+ temps! The next morning, we easily made it back home before noon.
After driving through New Mexico for many years with barely a stop, we were so glad to actually spend some time there and get to see some of the really interesting and beautiful parts of the “Land of Enchantment.” We added a few new places to our “have to go back there” list and met a lot of interesting people. We hope we piqued your interest and we recommend you consider northern New Mexico in your future travel plans.
Looking forward to the Next Adventure!
Roger & Viki; the Rambling Roos