If you take "The High Road" from Santa Fe north to Taos, you're in for plenty of mountain vistas and old adobe churches; plan to stop frequently. Spaniards founded villages here in the 17th and 18th centuries--their northernmost reach into the southernmost spur of the Rocky Mountains. Their adobe churches remain. The most noteworthy in this region of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains are: the Santuario in Chimayó (built in 1814), the Mission in Truchas (1764), Las Trampas' San José de Gracia (1751), and San Francisco de Asis in Ranchos de Taos (1772).