What? Taos, again?

Here are the reasons we keep going to Taos:

1. It’s easy for us to get to (an 11-hour drive, but still, a drive, so we can take all of our stuff)
2. It’s hard for you to get to (if you can’t drive there, you have to fly to Santa Fe, which isn’t a huge airport, and then drive an hour to Taos).
3. No lift lines (see 2)
4. We keep getting mistaken for locals.
5. Mountains
6. Great restaurants
7. The friendliest people on earth (this is New Mexico in general). We have both hitchhiked and picked up hitchhikers here (with discretion, of course).
8. Great skiing, especially if you are an expert. Similar to Alta, albeit without the incredibly dependable Alta powder.
9. Great powder! Not everybody can be Alta, but still, we’ve always have powder days at Taos.
10. Käse Spaëtzle at The Bavarian

We had a great time. Some highlights: we stayed in a brand new rental house this time. We were the first renters, so the builder/owner was on hand to make sure everything went great, and he gave us some good tips for restaurants we hadn’t tried. We finally made it over to Ojo Caliente, a hot springs spa. I think Julia Roberts was at the next table at dinner one night (she has a house there). This year we bought skis and custom-fit boots, and the difference that made, especially on Thursday, when there was about 6″ of new powder, was amazing. That day we looked like ski posters, all grins and flying powder. At lunch one ski day, we shared a table with three really interesting boys from a New Mexico international school. One was French, was was Israeli, and one was Albanian. They belonged to their school ski club and came every weekend, staying in the Abominable Snowmansion hostel in Arroyo Seco. They were astounded when we told them the price of full price lift tickets these days (rightly so). We drove home in one of the Texas Panhandle’s famous dust storms. There were so many tumbleweeds that every time we would see ten or more blow across the road at once, Ed would yell “Jailbreak!”