Poor Planning

About that trip on Memorial Day Weekend, this (this site has an adult warning as they show the boobies) says it all. Our mission was to trek around the Enchanted Circle Scenic Byway but we were foiled by an annual biker rally! Poor planning. Red River, NM is a town that takes about 5 minutes to drive through EXCEPT when there is a biker rally, then it takes about an hour. The entire drive along the scenic byway was completely congested with motorcycles. Thousands of motorcycles. Anywhere to stop and enjoy a view was filled with motorcycles. Traffic stops were frequent. We were simply waived through each of them but many motorcycles were lined up on the side of the road at each one so they did snag some drunk bikers. Seems odd. Invite them all here and them bust them!

After getting into Taos we began our hike. At that time we knew we had seen more motorcycles than normal in Taos and on the drive up, but it was not until we reached Red River that we realized our mistake. Mind you, we barely found Red River as like the rest of New Mexico, our path was sans signs. In fact, considering there are only about 140 byways in the entire nation, I found it odd that this one had ZERO signs identifying it as such. So we simply did our best to get the hell out of Red River and hope for a clearer path on the other side. No such luck.

Our next town was Eagle's Nest. We visited a few shops there. They were relatively biker-free though there was a bar in Eagle's Nest with about 100 bikes parked out front. We asked a lady in a shop to recommend a lunch spot, she raved about some burgers sold down the street so we went there and she was correct. Delicious!

We left Eagle's Nest and then headed to Angel Fire along the scenic byway. Lots of beautiful views but again, bikes filled every place to stop and kept our drive at a snail's pace. We did finally find a stop-off with no motorcycles and captured a few shots.

Next we arrived in Angel Fire and visited the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Guess who was there? Hundreds of bikers.

From there we headed back to Taos where we visited anything that was open on the plaza. Oddly enough, most everything was closed. We browsed through our handy Taos guide and looked for a place to eat that was reasonably priced and sold beer. Our first two choices, of course, closed, so we settled for Ogelvie's which looked a little less intriguing but turned out to be delicious and they had ice cold beer!

After that we hung out outside our motel room, drank more beer and conversed just a little with all our biker neighbors. They were mostly too drunk to have much conversation with and of course, all offered us more beer! After it got late, we headed inside. Spent the night on the sleeper sofa as the bedroom had no TV. And then of course, we had freaky, hot motel sex. Just something about a room!

The next day we headed home and stopped for the afternoon in Santa Fe. Unlike Taos, virtually everything was open. We did some shopping, had some lunch, drove home.

To see this trip in pictures, click here!