Santa Fe...where the sun shines 360 days a year! And that's a fact. It never gets too cold here but we're told they get all four seasons so it's almost the perfect climate. It was a gorgeous day to head up to Taos to check out the ski area.  It's about 70 miles away and there is a mountain pass that takes you along some of the most beautiful part of the country you would ever see. We decided to use GPS Trixie since we really haven't heard her British accent in a few days and figured she missed us. On the way to Taos, we stopped in a little town called Chimayo. The town is home to a Sanctuario, sometimes referred to as the "Lourdes of America" where hundreds of thousands of people come each year in search of a miracle.  It's also home to the Peligrino Cafe where Charlie works. He said he is "14th generation" and sells all types of dried spices in front of the restaurant. He approached us and said we looked like we were from out of town. We may have given him a clue since Lisa had a map in her hand we were studying intently. But, he's from the land of miracles so maybe he was praying two suckers from Chicago would appear... and his prayers were answered. He gave an elaborate tasting demonstration of several spices that we couldn't live without. We, of course, were looking for the tale that since he's "14th generation" (with a really good dentist since he had a beautiful set of choppers) he grows everything off his land (except the sandwich baggies) and this is how he feeds his family of 30. But, such was not the case. Some guy from Mexico sells him the spices and people like us buy them. He was a true salesman with the gift of gab and the only way to get out of there was to purchase some of his wares and scram. Today we were grateful for Trixie. She was truly our miracle as she got us safely out of Chimayo only $12.00 in debt. 

From Chimayo we headed to Taos for some snow-shoeing at 9,000 ft. elevation.  All our ski wear was with us so we used the car to turn us into the Sport Spice gals. We followed a beautiful snow shoe trail for about 50 yards and were immediately lost. To the right was a small river and although we had just left the land of miracles, neither of us felt we earned any special powers to get over the water without getting wet. To the left was a 1700 foot climb back up to the trail we lost (ok, 50 feet but it was ALL uphill in deep snow).  After using several trees as our pulleys and few tumbles in the snow, we managed to get back on track and shoe for an hour in the warm sunlight of the Taos mountains. And yes, along the way we did stop to talk about just how lucky we are.