The Beauty And The Beast

A sentence I can be confident that I have never, ever spoken, written, thought or even dreamt . Here it comes…..

We were hit by an Elk today.

Yep. Driving through extremely rural Southern Colorado near a place called Chromo en route to Santa Fe we saw an Elk on the roadside – nothing odd there as they’re everywhere – the Elk saw us and casually decided to jump into the side of the car. I shit you not. It was facing into the woods and it turned and leapt at the vehicle. A rather horrible thud and then for what seemed like an eternity we had Elk-face squashed against the passenger window. We turned a corner and the incident was over. We couldn’t see if the Elk was now roadkill as we didn’t stop. Classic hit and run and it’s all the elks fault. We think he/she was just a bit shaken up – we were.

Have you ever had a large animal stuck to the side of your car at 50mph?

The stupid beast luckily only broke the plastic bit on the back of the wing mirror, but as the vehicle is some hugely posh Nissan 4×4 thing (begins with an “M” and sounds like a healthy breakfast cereal) that’s probably $5,000 of damage. Bet the hire-car company won’t believe this one.

We drove the next few hundred miles very gingerly watching every bustle in the the roadside with dread. No more Elk strikes. In the next gas station I tell the heard-it-all-before local nutcase about our earth-shattering drama:

“Hello what can I get for you today?”

“$30 dollars on #6 and I’ve just hit an Elk”

“Yep, hit ‘em twice last week, thems big critters”

“Oh…right”

“How ya finding Colorado?”

The wonderful Coyote Cafe restaurant where we shall take dinner later (see notes) is serving Elk – and I’m going to eat the fuckers brother….

We get into New Mexico and divert ever so slightly to see the Rio Grande gorge. It’s a mighty thing indeed, it is Geological Wonder #321 on this trip. I ask Ashly to look ‘very sad’ next to the Samaritans phone-point for a photograph, she accedes too easily to the request as she’s still pissed-off with me over ‘The Durango Incident.’

The high desert in northern New Mexico has a load of “eco” houses built into the ground. They are called Earthships and are a strange sight indeed. Choc full of wealthy hippies who, I’d bet a limb on, used to be software developers or injury lawyers. I notice how calm Ashly looks in this environment, which is a  miracle as she had earlier been face-to-face with an Elk at 50mph.

The Earthships surely work their magic.

Taos is a charming New Mexico town where spending $10,000 on a leather belt, a cowboy shirt and a Native American bracelet is alarmingly easy. We field a few more ‘Kate & Wills’ queries and move on to Santa Fe for a two night stop that is much anticipated and badly needed. We’ve fallen in love with New Mexico after three hours in its magical grip.