Even if you haven’t visited the old adobe mission in Ranchos de Taos, New Mexico, you’ll likely recognize it. Ansel Adams photographed the church in 1929, and Georgia O’Keeffe painted it in 1930, making it famous to this day.

San Francisco de Asís church

San Francisco de Asís was built in the early 1800s. “Constructed of mud and straw sun-dried adobe bricks, this church still stands as one of the few original buildings in Taos,” according to its website, and it continues to hold services.

O’Keeffe painted the rear of the church by rendering its blocky form into geometric shapes. When I visited at the end of August, monsoon-watered grasses were stubbling the earthen surface of its buttresses.

Along a side wall, orange globe mallow was flowering.

The front of the church is softly molded too, with two bell towers rising above a central arched door.

Sloping buttresses

Inside, the church feels surprisingly airy, even with the old vigas — hand-carved beams — stretching overhead.

Looking back to the entrance

Behind the altar hangs a colorfully painted reredos, or altar screen.

Another screen hangs on an adjacent wall.

Afternoon light

The front plaza of the church…

…contains a statue of its namesake, St. Francis of Assisi. Beyond a rose-lined wall…

…sits an adobe home or shop with sky blue doors and windows. Sunflowers and painted hollyhocks add a bit of garden.

Rio Grande Gorge Bridge

Approximately 10 miles northwest of Taos, a spiderwebby steel bridge arches across a deep gorge carved into the Taos Plateau. At its deepest, the gorge plunges 800 feet to the snaking Rio Grande River below. But here the bridge soars approximately 600 feet above the river. Strangely, there isn’t a consensus on the bridge’s height. It’s the 5th, 7th, or 10th highest bridge in the U.S., depending on the source. No matter. It’s high.

The bridge sneaks up on you as you cruise across the plain. Suddenly you’re flying across a stomach-flipping abyss, with nothing but empty air all around you.

We parked on the west side of the gorge in a visitor lot with picnic tables and restrooms and walked over to the bridge. Cars and trucks zipped across the narrow, two-lane span. Note the cantilevered viewing platforms poking out from the bridge rail. I only made it to the first one.

An elevated sidewalk runs along both sides of the bridge, and we joined other scattered visitors venturing out for the epic view.

Pictures can’t convey how semi-terrifying it was to lean out over the railing and peek at the miniaturized river below.

That view though. I took it all in on one side of the bridge, my knees shaking as cars whooshed behind me.

During a lull, I crossed to the other side to admire the gorge with late-afternoon light cutting across it. And then I hightailed it back to solid earth.

If you enjoy a thrill, or a glimpse of eons of geologic time, this is an attraction for you.

Sunflowers and mountains near the Gorge Bridge.

Up next: Santa Fe’s Railyard Park and colorful farmers’ market. For a look back at my tour of Georgia O’Keeffe’s Abiquiú home, click here.

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Digging Deeper

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