Taking the high road, Santa Fe to Taos.

Adobe is the kindest thing man can do to the environment. What pleasant harmony. What generosity of human spirit, to meet the aesthetic of the landscape and not try to dominate it.

New Mexico is a revelation.

We admire this architectural intelligence over and over as we

drive out of Santa Fe. Elegant adobe housing developments stretch on through the outskirts.

Even the nasty old cement overpass on the highway has been decorated in designs and hues to soften its presence.

And on we roll, out into a big calm outback vista of low hills which roll into the distance towards a horizon of further rolls of faraway blue hills. There’s not a lot of traffic.

Communities are discreetly tucked into folds and valleys. Desert junipers dot the land.

The landscape becomes more dramatic as we drive northeast.

Sharp-edge cliffs arise, so acutely illuminated in the autumn sun that they are almost super-focused.

There goes a pueblo. It is the Pojoaque Valley with a convenience store and, suddenly, traffic lights and a wee congestion of traffic. There’s mini storage. An American community, however small, can’t live without that. There’s a little township of low adobe office buildings and shops.

There’s a sharp arete beside the town, and an advertisement for Kokoman beer. And a farmer’s market with horse trailers and horses. Heavens, a sign reveals they are Mustangs For Adoption.

Past a bowling centre, a little winery and distillery, a casino, a psychic’s room - and back into the New Mexico landscape.

Pinkish cliffs. Yellow cottonwoods.

Oh, there’s a failed winery. A sad sight with a field of little contorted stalks and a shabby abandoned buildings - the pathos of the desert.

And a rusty little settlement. Humble signs advertising businesses from home - permanent hair removal. Abandoned cars, Rusting junk.

We’re on the Yogi Bhajan Memorial Highway, it seems. The guru of compassion and wisdom. That is nice, albeit unexpected out here.

Especially now we sight a casino billboard. But, ah, look, it is next to a Healing Centre sign.

I love those mad juxtapositions.

Here come the chain businesses - Motel 6, Sonic Burger, Lowes, Taco Bell, Wendy’s, Walmart, Dollar Deals - it’s a long ugly strip of commerce. Porky’s Pool Hall! Sheesh.

The only good thing in sight is the chains and bunches of chilies for sale.

Here’s the Ohkay Casino. It’s a tent-like structure. And prefab buildings and trailers are around the place. Boats for sale and sheds.

What a contrast from the aesthetics we left behind in Santa Fe.

When the road opens back into countryside, we are relieved.

Glorious golden cottonwoods beam up from along the river course.

There’s smoke rising from the distance. We try to perceive smoke signals. Weren’t they a thing once?

Hoarding: Dr Richard Padburg - We treat Everything But Pottymouth.

We swing into a broad valley to find another little community of prefab and portable homes straggling along on side of the road. Plus mini storage, of course. Its nightspot, Club Luna, looks dingy and grotty. Maybe it sparkles by night.

There’s Our Lady of Guadalupe Church. She is much revered in New Mexico.

This valley goes on and on along the path of the river - and with it, the community of humble homes.

And the cottonwoods just shine and glow in the centre of it all, marking the water course. Ah, it’s called Velarde.

A roadside fruit and vegetable stand, beautifully bedecked with chili bunches is just postcard beautiful. I would love to stop. But we move on and get our first sight of the famous Rio Grande, the river around which all this life has been centred.

It runs green and slow.

But, oh, how the cottonwoods blaze and dazzle in their autumn glory.

Another defunct winery. Oh, that is the most pitiful vineyard I ever saw. Little, shrivelled, stalky dry things trying to cling to guide wire.

Oh, a brewery.

We hum along, along, along.

New Wave Rafting is advertised. The poor Rio Grande doesn't look up to it right now. Rinconada comes along, a crude settlement which offers stone carving classes and windscreen replacement.

Suddenly, the most fantastical cliff formations appear. Sandstone. Spectacular. Big angular rocks.

Damn, we are stuck behind a caravan with a growing daisy chain of cars.

The little Rio Grand trickles along beside us and we cross a rustic little bridge. Rough shacks. But, oh, such imposing vertical cliffs.

The Rio Grande now is on shallow gravel bed with rocks it can rush around on its way to the Gulf of Mexico. It is still not very grand.

But the Rio Grande Gorge is. We descend into it on a sleek winding road. There’s a little river beach and people actually fishing from it. What could they catch in that shallow water? There’s a folksy store at the bottom of the valley offering adventure rafting and coffee. A few shacks and sheer-edge mountains rising around us.

Look at the caps of basalt at the top, says Bruce, the result of relatively recent volcanism. The road leads out into pleasant valley lands where hawks soar, horses graze and horse rides are advertised.

And then the road climbs and winds into more mountain. We are caught in a frenzy of overtaking.

Out the other side and there is a vast flat valley, cut through by this huge gorge. A plateau. Altitude 7000ft, reports Bruce.

Mighty mountains in the distance all around.

Pinion pines look pretty. Not so, the Teepee Factory Outlet.

Here come all the usual signs of habitation. How many times have we passed them.

Mini storage, I chant. This one is actually micro mini.

Gourmet burgers, beer and wine, raft trips, scrub lands and little adobe houses.

Hah. That is more like it. Adobe.

Traffic lights and a rough little town. This is now Route 68, which used to be Route 66.

Sign advertising ski rentals. Buzzard circling above.

The State Police Hospital? A hospital for police?

And a small shopping mall - a Walmart, a flock of pigeons.

We cross the Rio Fernando. Grand name, but it is a dry gutter.

I open the window and hear bird song.

Busy small commerce and lots of adobe now surrounds us and, oh heavens above, a string of the most astonishing political signs I have seen in this great, politically divided country.

These people do not like Donald Trump. One after another hand-painted sign screams from the roadside. Bedecked by balloons no less.

Trump Focus Fear Hate Lies Sex

Trump Godless Religious Phony Hypocrite

Chomsky Immoral To Not Vote for Hillary

This is the high mountain township of Taos. I like it already.