Framedlight

  We got back to the house where we were staying in Taos in time for lunch. This house was charming. It was adobe and quite old with a bedroom, a sitting room, bathroom and kitchen. The kitchen was old fashioned although clean and the bed was extremely comfy. There was a television mounted on a trolley so it could be pushed from the living room to the bedroom, which was the biggest room in the house. I spent a lovely evening in bed watching 'The Good Nurse' with Ben Wishaw, while Alan slept. What utter luxury. In the garden was a small shed like building which the owner said was thought to be one of the oldest houses in Taos. He was going to restore it but at the moment it was a ruin and dangerous. I managed to open the door a little and look in but the floor was covered with debris and broken glass.

By lunchtime all the balloons had ascended and the field was clearing of people. The house we had rented was not far from the centre of Taos so we decided to walk back there for lunch. Our walk took us up the main drag and through Taos Plaza, a square which was un-metalled and composed of adobe shops and a central bandstand. A lot of the shops were typically 'American' which amused me. Cannabis seemed to be legal in New Mexico Coming out of the plaza we passed the large church of Our Lady of Guadalupe. This church was built in 1961 to replace an older church that had been built by the Franciscans in 1801, but had been destroyed by fire. We saw several more interesting buildings as we walked west to the outskirts of town and our house, including the Taos branch of the University of New Mexico and something called 'The Chicken Coop"!. Finally, as we got clear of the housing we could see the back drop of mountains to our north.

We had discovered that the Taos Balloon Festival was taking place on the first morning we were staying in the town. We had missed the Albuquerque one which is enormous, around 200 balloons, so thought we would recompense. The Taos one is much smaller, only about 15 balloons, but it was still great fun. We set out really early and walked to the venue as we thought parking would be difficult. It was cold and crisp with the sun coming up over the mountains. Nothing at all was happening when we got there so we walked around for a bit! When we got back the balloons had started to arrive and being laid out to inflate. The trick seemed to be to lay the balloons on the ground, sometimes on top of a tarpaulin and then start to inflate them with the gas burner. As the balloons grew they would be steadied with a rope to pull them upright and tether them. Then the people would get into the basket and jettison the rope. Fortunately there were some food trucks so we could get some much needed breakf...