I decided to finally take a half-day ride up to Madrid and Cerrillos, New Mexico. The two towns are very close together.

Cerrillos is mostly made of gravel or dirt roads with very few shops.

I came across the St. Joseph’s Catholic Adobe Church and renovated home called Berardinelli House that use to be a saloon in its day.

Evidently there is no leash law in the town because on more than one occasion I was outracing some mutts on my bike. This became a little annoying quite frankly.

The Casa Grande Trading Post was a Mom and Pop shop and mining museum. They also had about every bottle imaginable in the store. Outside they had a quant little petting zoo for little kids and BMW motorcycle riders. Most of the animals were common. Some weren’t.

North of Madrid, NM, I stopped in a semi-famous or maybe infamous tourist spot called “The Bone Zone” It’s just someone’s front yard where a sculptor created all kinds of eerie art from different types of bones, glass and other items. It was worth a stop.

Madrid, NM is another one of the many “artsy” towns I have been through. Honestly I prefer the landscape around Madrid more than the town itself. Maybe I have gone through too many artsy places. The all seem to run together.

A couple years back the biker movie “Wild Hogs” with Tim Allen, John Travolta, Martin Lawrence and William H. Macy was shot there. A cafe that built and used in the movie is still there. (Sorry…I didn’t get a picture.)

From Touchstone Pictures

The whole day was beautiful. The wide open spaces of New Mexico are just a delight to ride through. The weather was cool and the day was quite settling. The day help me realize how this would be such a great place to settle permanently again.

Since I had time between appointments, I decided to take a road trip up to Taos, NM. I traveled a longer scenic route called “The High Road to Taos”. It adds about 30 minutes to the trip but the view is far better.

I arrived in Taos fairly late in the afternoon so I decided to head north of the town and find a campsite for the night. I found some beautiful camps along the side of the road about 8 miles shy of the Taos Ski Valley. They were right along there river and best of all they didn’t cost a thing. Modern conveniences such as a toilet and running water were missing but for the price and location, (I was right on the river) you couldn’t beat it.

The next morning I rode to Arroyo Seco. It’s a small artsy town that Julia Roberts once called home…or at least a vacation home. It is a very small and quiet village with lots of character.

After my visit to Arroyo Seco, I rode to the Taos Ski Valley.

Everything was obviously shut down. Alot of shops were getting ready for the upcoming ski season that starts at Thanksgiving. For a small fee, I was allowed to ride the ski lift up and down the mountain.

Once at the top of the lift, I saw some very beautiful views.

Wheeler Peak

Later in the afternoon, I rode back into Taos and finally found some Wifi at a coffee shop. There I got a small football fix and then motored back to Albuquerque.