Is this where we should be living?

Weds. July 30th.  Mesa Verde to Taos.

Posted by Neil for a change...

Really bad night.  45 degrees, four of us huddled in two cot beds.  Quite an adventure!  Perhaps we have to accept that we are not really equipped for camping with one two man tent and one sleeping bag.  The Civic size limitation, but a small price to pay for great gas mileage.  And we were so grimy and sleepy, it was all the more delightful when we checked into the wonderful Indian Hills Inn (2 minutes walk from the Taos Plaza- a real deal!) and found clean sheets, hot shower, good internet connection, electricity for charging our appliances, and (sadly) TV for the kids!  Motels just are much more practical when moving along at a clip as we are... but we will give the camping one more try when we get to the flat part of the country!

The monkeys didn't want to leave the Mesa, but we certainly did!

Wasn't tempted... somewhat ironic find though!

The bottom stretch of Colorado is absolutely gorgeous- Alpine valleys, and these lovely old barns.  But so green that I suspect it might be cold in the Winter!

Plentiful food supplies for hunter-gatherers...

and great views!

Big skies...

and very different concerns from suburban NJ...

Carson National Park in New Mexico.  Flag at half-mast for two fire-fighters killed in California last week.

As we dropped down into New Mexico, we went back to desert scrub, but with the benefit of these beautiful wildflowers.

Fifteen miles out of Taos we visited  an Earthship!  These houses are self-sufficient (ie. off the grid) and low Environmental impact.  You can see here the adobe walls peppered with bottles and cans for decoration/ structural support.  

The houses are built with old tires, which makes for really thick walls, are stable interior temperatures, and lots of solar panels to generate a lot of energy from a really plentiful NM resource!

This is not a Roman bathtub, but the central cistern for storing run-off water.  NM only gets 8-12" of rain a year, but by careful processing (using the water four times) these houses can manage with that.

The kids were of differing opinions, but I was sold on the project.  One day I'd love to build my own house, away from it all, using some of these methods.  Can't be worse than living in an old house where something always needs fixing (sorry Trish and Jake, currently inhabiting "the Blue House"!)

We crossed the Rio Grande again (Texas seems a lifetime ago) on a fine steel 30's bridge...

I held on tight to the kids...

and rewarded them for their patience with something cold from the very alternative ice cream bus woman.  Getting very mellow in with the happy people in Taos!  Then dinner in the Plaza, deep cleansing, and an early night!