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This is sort of crooked because it was taken from this moving vehicle (no excuse, I know) but it shows the Sunrise Ski Area in eastern New Mexico. This pass was nearly 10,000 feet high and as you can see, still covered with snow.

We spent the night at an RV Park in Springerville, about 50 miles west of the New Mexico line. It’s nice having hookups when it’s cold so we can run our electric heater all night and stay warm.

Pie Stop!

The next morning it was off to Pie Town, New Mexico, home of the world-famous Daily Pie Café. We know it is world famous because we read about it in the January issue of Smithsonian Magazine. We got there at 10:30 or so, just in time for Lorri to order their last piece of New Mexican Apple Pie, a delicious apple pie spiked with spicy green chilies.

I got a piece of Peachy Walnut Crunch and we both had coffee to wash the pie down. We had the opportunity to meet and talk with the owner, Peggy, and she was just as sweet as the pie. Here she is with Lorri.

We got a nice Pie Town coffee mug to add to our collection.

Wine Stop!

From Pie Town, which is at about 8000 feet and right on the Continental Divide, we headed down the grade to I-25 and then north to Albuquerque, where we hit the next two wineries on our great winery quest.

The first was Gruet (www.gruetwinery.com), located in an impressive building just off I-25, a little north of downtown Albuquerque. There we were greeted by Scott and Sofian and tasted some of their fine sparkling and still wines. Gruet wines are marketed coast to coast and can be found at Whole Foods in San Diego. Their grapes are organically grown about two hours south of the winery and picked and brought to the winery uncrushed. All the winemaking is done right there in Albuquerque. We bought a few bottles and then headed across town to Casa Rondeña Winery.

Another Wine Stop!

Casa Rondeña (www.casarondena.com), unlike Gruet, is a little off the beaten track, but still in town. When we saw it we thought that it looked like it had been there a long time but it turns out all the buildings were constructed relatively recently by the winery owner who also happens to be a high-end custom home builder.

He has done a nice job with the buildings as well as the wine. Here I am leaning on one of the buildings.

We met Maureen Wynne, who poured the wines and a young couple from Tennessee who gave us some important tips on Tennessee wines to help us with our wine quest.

A view of the vines and the buildings. Like Gruet, most of their grapes are grown farther south.

Since it was getting sort of late in the afternoon, we thought it might be a good idea to find a place to camp for the night so we headed east on I-40 and soon found ourselves at Santa Rosa Lake State Park.

We had stayed here once before (on Road Trip One) and remembered it to be pretty nice. We found a spot and settled in for the night. It was still too windy to enjoy much time outside, but at least it was sunny and getting warmer.