With a full belly from the Poco Loco, the general store in Carson, and a full tank of gas, I went to the resort. Rather expansive and rather posh. I didn’t really want to stay there, just wanted to sample the springs, so I bypassed the hotel desk and went up to the cute young woman who was tending to reservations for the various spa comforts and to entry to the springs. I totally flustered that young woman, who - when I asked her how I could go into the springs - said “Take off your clothes and jump in!”. Thinking that a good idea, but noticing that all of the people I could see were wearing bathing suits, I pursued more exacting information. Ultimately, I rented a pool and went for a soak.
Now, Ojo offers various pools, including Arsenic and Lithium! I’m wondering why anybody would want to soak their bodies in Arsenic? And, not feeling particularly manic, I was wondering why I would select Lithium. My soak in “mixed” waters was delightful, if lonely, and thoroughly relaxing - must have been the Lithium in the mix. As I was leaving, I noticed some people who were hanging out in the Lithium pool, and more specifically noticed that they were lightly encrusted with a white powder. Since they were fairly passive, I assumed that they had not been buttering themselves and rolling in fortunes of cocaine, but instead had repeatedly dipped themselves in the Lithium salts and air dried between dips, like making a candle. Curious.
Back onto the highway, driving north to approach Taos from the northwest. It was a long ride over extraordinarily open terrain. Sometimes inclines, but mostly flat, lots of sagebrush, massive blue mountains in the distance. I’ve left the edges of the multiple shifted plates between Albuquerque and Santa Fe, and am now driving on the eastern backs of those plates. There are few physical landmarks (other than the roadway itself), against which one can measure progress. The best comparison I can make is sailing open waters on a compass course. Even with land in the distance, one’s relative position to that land seems unchanging, and progress is only measured in time. So too is progress towards Taos.
Now I know some of you have GPS systems, and they will measure progress towards a goal, but I’m a 21st Century Luddite, and GPS seems like cheating the Fates. The Hertz counterman had offered me a Mercedes SUV with GPS, but thinking that a bit extravagant, I turned it down, settling for a Chevy. Now, if he had offered me a Lamborghini I might have taken him up on it, but a mere Mercedes? No way! Anyway, no GPS, just dead reckoning. A road, and a clock, and a goal.
At one point I noticed smoke rising from the forests (indicated on the map) to my northwest, and wondered what import that might have to my future travels. I later found out that it had been a controlled burn in a different portion of the Carson National Forest, a portion I was later to cross on my way to Durango.
Road repairs, then finally the right turn towards Taos. Now, I’m driving towards those mountains in the distance, and I know that Taos lies at their feet. I’m anxious to get there, and a bit concerned about finding a place to stay. Its been a long day, I’m hot, my eyes are tired from the sun shining from my left and sneaking behind my sunglasses, and I’m getting hungry again.
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