Back to Golden Fall from snow...

You know how it is... The days get shorter, the leaves turn from green to yellow and then fly away... in a few days it snows and the temperature drops by a good 20 degrees... Yeah, we usually call it Fall ;) And that's exactly what happened in 2012, when we had snow most of the day on Friday, October the 5th. And (as you might have guessed) there were no leaves left on the trees by this moment. But we had some plans for that weekend, so we loaded up the car and headed down Highway 285 towards New Mexico. At first, we moved slowly, not only because of the snowy and slippery roads, but also because of the thick fog... But after about an hour... the clouds were left behind and we enjoyed a blue sky and nicer weather... The trees were mostly barren and looked miserable when we stopped for a second at Kenosha Pass...

 

But when we reached Buena Vista, we felt like we were back in time.... The perfect Golden Fall was still there, the aspens were golden yellow, the temperature was around 55F and... it was nice...

We passed by and after a couple of hours stopped for the night in Taos. At this point, we knew we didn't need the warm jacket until we were back to Denver ;)

We woke up the next morning and decided that we had enough time and didn't need to be in Santa Fe until late... So instead of taking a direct and fast route we opted for small mountain roads and... and we had no complaints as the scenery was just beautiful...

The road meandered between the hills, and we stopped here and there to watch the bright golden yellow aspens climb up the hills...

In fact, we could easily drive these 70 miles all day, with a hundred stops... But even though we were in no hurry, such a pace didn't look right so...

 

We stopped in Penasco, a small mountain town. We wanted to see the theater building. It was built in 1940 and is still working. Not as a theater anymore but as an entertainment and art center. Nice and friendly place, we loved staying there for a while.

Click here to learn more About Penasco theater

Our next stop was to see San José de Gracia de Las Trampas mission church in Las Trampas. This church was built in 1780 and now this is one of the best preserved examples of Spanish Colonial Mission architecture in New Mexico. San José de Gracia de Las Trampas is still an active parish church and was fully restored in the 1970s.

 

Unfortunately the church was closed when we stopped there, but click here if you'd like to peek inside - San José de Gracia de Las Trampas.

 

About an hour later we stopped in Chimayo, a small town well known as a city of weavers. We met Irwin, who runs a small business as a fourth generation weaver and uses both, new and traditional patterns when he weaves the rugs. 

Irwin creates a lot of new and modern rugs but always works on something that bears the pattern of his ancestors. 

By the way, a large rug takes about a half a year of work... He doesn't have any drafts and only uses a very simple sketch (looks like a children's picture) and keeps all the patterns in his mind. 

He also spends a lot of time spinning threads and dyeing them using old recipes. We talked a little with the master before visiting another interesting place in the town...

Click here to check another amazing attraction there - El Santuario de Chimayó.

Pictures were taken on October 05-06, 2012.