Travel in New Mexico

For my holiday mailing several years ago, I intended to do lyrics based on the Bonny Banks of Loch Lomond (Ye’ll tak’ the high road and I’ll tak’ the low road/And I’ll be in Taos afore ye …, which would actually have some relevance, because there is a High Road to Taos, and I’ve been lost on it. On the low road, too.    

For Thanksgiving that year, a friend and I were driving up to her stepson and stepdaughter-in-law’s new home in Truchas, New Mexico. Truchas is an old town in the mountains about half-way between Santa Fé and Taos, so it’s about 90 miles from Albuquerque. We hadn’t been off the beaten track much in north central New Mexico, and one tends to forget that not everything is right off the freeway, as it would be in the I-5 corridor. 

Our host had emailed directions, which seemed straightforward. Take exit such-and-such, and when you pass Chimayó, turn onto Highway and-so-forth. Except he omitted to mention that you have to take the turn-off TO Chimayó and pass the actual town, rather than passing the turn-off, though he did remember to warn us of the possible presence of loose dogs and horses in Truchas. So we drove on through some beautiful scenery and the road became less and less a main road.

Eventually we came to a town called Cundiyo, the pavement ended and the road became more of a lane. Old adobe houses sat at odd angles to it: here the side of a house, there the corner. Not a person was stirring. It was like the first five minutes of a horror film, right before the zombies show up. 

We drove on, and pavement resumed. We drove through a town with no name a few miles on. No open business in sight, no human presence detectable. By then I was expecting to see plague victims stretched lifeless by the side of the road. Or black helicopters. Having moved to New Mexico from the I-5 corridor, I’m not used to seeing towns with no sign of life either human or mercantile.

Finally we came to a crossroad with the state route number we were looking for. After that, it was easy to find Truchas, although we overshot the turn-off to our friends’ house and made an unintended detour that took us onto a narrow, muddy road (it had begun to rain and then snow). We seemed to be heading into more mountains. Fortunately, while we were turning around (the truck has 4-wheel drive, which my friend actually got to use), an old pickup truck coming from the other direction stopped to see if we needed help. The driver and passenger were able to tell us where we’d gone wrong, and we made it to our destination.

Perhaps I should also mention one oddity about New Mexico. The highway or road name on the sign is not necessarily the same that’s shown on your map, or on the online directions. Sometimes the signage will give both. Sometimes not. That’s why we missed the correct turn. Intuition is important when driving in this state, and mine was not working that day.