September 21, 2021
No hiking, no rock art. Today I packed up my stuff from the casita where I was staying near Santa Fe and headed north. I did get to spend a couple hours relaxing before hitting the road, and did some reading.
My first planned stop was Orlando’s New Mexican Cafe in Taos. You see, there’s one New Mexican dish that I realized I never had on this trip, and today would be my last day in New Mexico, and therefore my last chance. That dish? Frito pie. So I did some research to find a well-rated restaurant in Taos that also had Frito pie on the menu, and Orlando’s was my choice.
The drive from Santa Fe to Taos was longer than I remembered from last time I did it, but I arrived around 12:30 or so, and then had to wait for another 20 minutes to get a table. Orlando’s is popular. Anyhow, here’s a picture of my lunch. I ordered it with beef and red chile, neither of which you can see under the lettuce and Fritos. But it was tasty.
My ultimate destination for the day was an Airbnb near San Luis, Colorado, and I wanted to arrive after 3pm, but before 5pm. So I stopped a couple places on the way since I had time. One stop was to see Old San Acacio which is a tiny village that’s home to Colorado’s oldest standing church, the San Acacio Mission Church, built in 1856. The church definitely wasn’t built to last 150 years, so they’ve had to do a ton of remodeling and stabilization since shortly after it was built. I found this awesome article that talks about the history of the church, but I’m not gonna repeat any of that here. Click the link if you are as curious about history as I am.
Give me a sign 
Catholic imagery 
San Acacio Mission Church 
An old gravestone 
Grave of a soldier 
Grave markers are written in Spanish here 
The dead cow 
Graveyard and church 
There’s a picture of the the saint in the window 
Building an adobe church next to a ditch is a bad idea
Behind the church is an old graveyard. Also, much appreciated by yours truly, there’s an outhouse. Beyond the graveyard is a cattle pasture, with, ironically, a dead cow. Church, dead people, dead cow.
After walking around the church grounds and taking these photos, I drove to and checked into my Airbnb, took a nap, and then drove back to San Luis for some amazingly good Thai food.
That pretty much sums up my day. Tomorrow I drive the rest of the way home. I expect it’s going to be pretty uneventful. No hikes, no rock art, no New Mexican food.