As sworn Sun Travelers,Marie and I departed at 6:00AM for Taos.Those of you who know Marie, and her hatred of any hour that ends in AM;will be proud to know that her head did not spin around and spew split pea soup.Nor did we leave at 6:66AM.She is a joy to travel with even during the hours of the beast.Believe it or not we did have to travel on US-666 to get to Bloomfield.The New Mexican welcome station said the route had been renumbered to US-491 recently due to frequent complaints from the religiously neurotic.Oh! Where was I? The drive was about 4.5 hours through the mountain elevations of NM.We drove through the heart of the Jicarilla Apache Indian Reservation.Cool temperatures,abundant wildlife,oil and natural gas wells blending with nature.and the lovely towns of Dulce,Tierra Acarilla,Tres Piedras on into Taos.Two events spiced the drive.We crested a hill at 60mph only to see 3 fully racked male deer standing together on the edge of the pavement.Naturally,they proceeded to bound directly into our path.It was sheer luck we missed the last one.PUCKER FACTOR ZERO for both occupants of the red woodie.I've never seen a rack of antlers that large live;much less 3 sets at warp speed.Ten minutes later we passed 2 massive elk carcasses,one on each side of the road,that must have been hit the night before.They were larger than big cows.I must admit I was tempted to strap the elk on the hood of the car and drive into Taos as the Great White Hunter,BaWana.The lack of a forklift and common sense stopped that lunacy.Man,it would have made a sight!! We cruised on into Taos to celebrate"THE SUMMER OF LOVE 2009".It is the 40th anniversary of EASY RIDER which had a great deal of it filmed here.Dennis Hopper,Easy Rider's director,is a resident so the town came up with the 2009 celebration.The church bells in Taos don't ring;they BONG,if you get my drift.
