Day 3 Enchanted Circle Loop - Taos, NM to Questa

Day 3 of our cycling adventure around the Enchanted Circle Drive in New Mexico is complete. It started off traveling through the busy streets of Taos, despite an early start, but as we left the city the view and the ride was beautiful. A fellow cyclist past us as we stopped to take pictures and stated “It’s majestic, isn’t it?” and his words were correct the haze on the mountains and the sun coming up made for a majestic site and that became even more real as we looked across the sky and spied two hot air balloons floating
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After completing about 13 miles of the trip things then got “not so majestic” and a whole lot of work. Wow! The last thirteen miles proved to be a challenge. The down hills were steep and short and the uphills were steep and seemingly unending at times. There were two particular stretches that were unbelievably long and definitely a challenge. A different sort of challenge than the pass yesterday since it was 13 miles, but definitely a mentally tough morning. I do have to say for the most part the bike lane/shoulder was wonderful and allowed for pretty low stress travel. We were grateful for the afternoon to rest and enjoy Questa.

The owner of our hotel in Questa was very generous and allowed us an very early checkin . The Motel de Sangre is an older hotel, but it is clean and has an exceptionally nice owner who let us in our room before noon and provided us with a lot information about the area.
After cleaning up and washing our clothes in the bathtub (the laundromat is at the bottom of the hill in town) we decided to walk to lunch at the Bobcat Drive inn where we had a very tasty lunch. We both enjoyed the Bobcat special which was a hamburger, fries and a drink. David had green chilies on his that proved to have a pretty good kick to them. I believe the fries were homemade and were very good.

On our walk home we stop by several locations located on a walking tour of Questa including a cemetery near the Catholic Church, Saint Anthony’s Catholic Church which has an amazing restoration story, and the Questa information center which provided more information about Saint Anthony’s restoration. The woodwork was gorgeous in the church and we suspected it was hand carved and our spontaneous stop at the Information Center confirmed our suspicions. The grounds also in included a Prayer Garden which included some Stations of the Cross, but sadly the area currently is not kept up, but it appears the citizens of Questa are working hard to clean up many of the areas like this that have over grown so hopefully this garden is on their list. We then stopped and grabbed a drink at the local coffee shop and headed home for a nap.
After resting up we headed the opposite direction to Franks and had dinner. Their tacos were yummy and fresh and David’s fries and chicken strips looked tasty. As we finished dinner were heard a loud bang and walked over to see an terrible looking accident, but luckily when David got to the scene he found that everyone was in pretty good condition. Sadly it appears the person that caused may have been under the influence of alcohol.

We then visited the local grocery store which was impressive for a small town grocery store. We grabbed breakfast, water and some snacks and headed home to watch a little television and get things ready for tomorrow.

Tomorrow is only 12 miles, but it is about a 1500 foot climb with only 72 feet of downhill. That worries me a little but I am looking forward to exploring Red River.