Quick Escape to Taos

These days a quick weekend road trip can feel more rewarding than a complicated vacation.

Last weekend I pointed my Toyota Tacoma south toward Taos with two kayaks strapped to the roof. One nearly 50 year old fiberglass downriver boat and one old school plastic boat. The mission was simple, race the annual Mother’s Day Race on the Rio Grande, camp a couple nights, and be back home within 48 hours.

And honestly, it was a reminder that you don’t have to travel far to have a fun adventure.

The Mother’s Day Race has been a tradition in Taos for decades. It’s competitive enough that people show up ready to race hard, but relaxed enough that it still feels like a reunion. Half river race, half annual gathering. You see old boats, old friends, and people who have been making the same pilgrimage every spring for years.

This year, the Rio Grande was low. Really low.

That made things interesting in a 14-foot fiberglass boat built in another era. Every rock suddenly mattered. Lines that normally go unnoticed became more technical. One mistake could mean hearing fiberglass scrape across New Mexico granite.

Which, admittedly, happened a few times.

Still, somehow the old boat survived the low water test and carried me to second place in the downriver race. Then I swapped into the shorter plastic boat for slalom and managed another second place finish there too.

Not bad for a weekend built around camping and a road trip.

One of the best parts of events like this isn’t even the racing, it’s everything around it. The parking lots full of kayaks. Camp stoves firing in the morning. Stories about old rivers and old boats. Then the awards ceremony afterward, where everyone hangs around long after the awards are handed out.

No rush. No airport. No schedule.

After the race, instead of hammering the entire drive home in one shot, I headed north and camped in the Arkansas River Valley. Just a quiet night, mountain air, and the kind of reset you only really get from sleeping outside after a long day on the water.

That’s what made this trip stand out.

It wasn’t some giant expedition. No flights. No expensive hotels. No weeklong vacation planning. Just a Tacoma, two kayaks on the roof, a couple nights of camping, and a race that’s been bringing paddlers together for generations.

A lot of people think adventure has to mean going far away. But sometimes the best trips are the ones close enough that you can leave after work, sleep under the stars, race an old fiberglass kayak through low water, and still be home by Monday.

And honestly, that kind of trip is getting harder to beat.