Caves, Spas, and Robe Thieves

So I enjoyed a delicious healthy not-dinner of fried mozzarella sticks and a small bourbon-brown sugar milkshake last night at the Sonic. Only on vacation, right?  John said his Reese's shake was better, but mine had bits of animal cracker on the top, so clearly I won.

Got up this morning and headed out of Espanola, up the road to Ojo Caliente where we got to tour one of the caves made by Ra Paulette.  We were not allowed to take photos in the cave proper, but I will find an image on the 'net somewhere, and share the ones I took outside.

The cave was as beautiful as I expected. Had incredible tall glass windows, many alcoves and part-rooms with wall carvings and decoration. There was a small room with an oval ceiling, and the part you walked into was a sounding board set sort of in the middle of the room, with a several foot drop-off on either side. The guides said later it was to lie down on and listen to the cave, but it was also a sound chamber and the board was a hollow construction with several different tones available as you stepped, so of course I played it. I also sang a little Siwe in the echo chamber.

The walk up was only about 1/3 mile, some of it quite steep, and I think we hung out in the cave for maybe an hour or so.  I'm not sure.  We would have loved to have had a private tour, rather than one with 14 elderly women "trekkers" with dual climbing poles and very chatty dispositions, but it was all worth it to see one of the caves for ourselves, anyway. I highly recommend the film "Cavedigger" if you can find it.  Good look at a fascinating man and his own "just do it."

We left the cave and drove up into Ojo Caliente proper for lunch at a little family-owned diner that had very mixed reviews on Yelp - love it or hate it, no one seemed neutral.  The waitress/owner was very nice but a bit overloaded - the place filled up as we sat. She got flustered and couldn't remember which tables she'd taken orders from.  The food was fine (green chili sauce, of course).  I very much liked the moose head (John says elk but moose is a better word) looking out the window.

Then on the Ojo Caliente Spa for the rest of the afternoon soaking in arsenic pools, soda pools, iron pools, and the mixture that is the large 86 degree pool. It's beautiful here, and we're both wandering around in spa robes over our swimsuits, and feeling relaxed and yes - grateful.

Tomorrow is down to Santa Fe and another installment of Relatives - John's nephew from Chama will be meeting us for lunch and whatever we end up doing for the afternoon. Then a HoJo's for the night; hopefully they will have a pool, but I doubt we will get nice spa robes.  Unless we steal the ones we're wearing.