Driving into Winter!

On the road again... northward bound from Santa Fe... we found ourselves driving out of autumn and into winter, in a single day.  

Here we are somewhere north of Espanola, NM on Halloween Day:

And here we are in our cute little free campsite that same afternoon: 

Tigger's first encounter with snow, ever!

And here's what Nate does with the first snow of the season:

 Yeah, you all know how he wrote that, right?  Gross.

Anyway, we spent two nights boondocking (no hook-ups for electricity, water, or sewer) in Tres Piedras, NM in the Carson National Forest.  [Tres Piedras = Three Rocks/Stones]  We were the only people in the campground!  We had provisioned up quite thoroughly in Santa Fe, so we had gin, pomegranates, and ice for "fall shots:"

And we had some great local microbrew beers (sorry, Mike... hehe) and a nice big pumpkin to carve into a jack-o-lantern.  I picked up some orange candles and drew faces on them, too:

Here's jack again, in his proper place on the front steps:

We had a lovely evening celebrating Halloween, ending with a great big campfire:

And here is how we rounded up that nice big pile of firewood, earlier in the day:

The next day, we went back into Tres Piedras to have lunch at the cute little country store (The Chili Line Depot) we'd found the night before.  And, as luck would have it, we met one of the owners, Debbie, with whom we ended up talking about our goal of starting a sustainability/natural building school.  She asked if we'd already been to the famous (or in some circles, infamous) Earthship community outside Taos.  We said we had not, and that we had to be in South Fork, Colorado the next day, so we didn't think we'd have time.

Well, Debbie was not about to stand for our nonsense.  She informed us the Earthship community was just down the road-- less than a half an hour's drive away!-- and she was going to take us to see them.  Hop in, she said.  We did.  Without a camera or cell phone.  :(

Earthships are buildings made from waste materials (such as bottles, aluminum cans, and tires) that would usually be headed for the dump.  In the USA, Michael Reynolds has been the earthship pioneer, starting an intentional community outside Taos, NM in the 1970s.  Here is one example of an earthship (pic from Mother Nature News):

Gorgeous, aren't they?

And if you want to learn more about earthships and Michael Reynolds, check out the documentary "Garbage Warrior" here.

While I love earthships in principle and definitely intend to include bottle-and-can walls in our eventual curriculum and campus buildings, 

[especially bottle walls... ooh, aah...]

{Image from inspirationgreen.com}

I would not use old tires in an enclosed living space of any kind.  Having taken a good measure of chemistry, and worked as an analytical chemist my first year out of college, I have not been convinced by the claims that there is no dangerous off-gassing from the tires both into, and out of, the structure.

If I ever meet Michael Reynolds, I will try to steer the conversation away from this topic.  ;)

So, Debbie brought us back to the Chili Line and said we should come back around later that afternoon for their friends-and-family-only Happy Hour!  We went back to the RV, fed the kitties and let them roam around outside for a bit, grabbed some cold beer to contribute to the happy hour, and were back by 5 or so.  Tables had been pushed together and the kitchen crew was bringing out a steady stream of fabulous appetizers (though whole pizzas start to just sound like dinner, don't they?).

What we thought was to be a literal happy hour turned into a whole evening of good conversation, great stories, and lots of laughs.  Debbie's husband, Gil, is a true-to-life cowboy, from his soft-spoken demeanor right down to his cowboy boots.  The two of them have had tons of adventures together, both work and play, and we really enjoyed spending time with them.  We realized it had been a really long time since we'd hung out with anyone besides... each other.  Yikes!

The next morning (November 2nd), after leaving Jack under a piñon (or pinyon, 'fer you yankees) tree to cheer passersby, 

 we stopped in for breakfast again at Chili Line and ended up eating with Gil.  More good conversation, and exchange of contact info, and we were on the road again, headed north to finally make our way across the NM-CO border!

After all Nate's work on Baba G, she was running great, and the whole drive from Tres Piedras to South Fork was flat or nice, gentle sloping hills.  Nothing crazy, like we would have experienced, had we tried (yeah, we considered it) to take the western approach and cross Wolf Creek Pass.  There is even, we were informed, an eponymous hilarious country song about how treacherous it is.  

 [As an aside, to anyone raised on Harry Chapin, such as myself, the Wolf Creek Pass song brings up another classic trucker-on-a-hill tune: yes, you know it: 30,000 Pounds of Bananas!]

We were saved (this time) from ourselves by a friendly, eavesdropping trucker way back at our favorite little coffee shop (Mojo Cafe... with wi-fi... and amazing chili... and lovely owners!) in Winslow, 

 

who heard us saying something like "RV....Wolf Creek... Maybe?"  That was all he needed to hear.  He stepped up to our table, asked if we were thinking about doing what he thought we were thinking about doing.  We sheepishly admitted it, and he just flat out said, "Do not even think about it."  So we stopped, and almost-certain disaster was averted.  Thanks, nameless trucker!

Anyway, we thoroughly enjoyed our nice, relaxing last day of driving to South Fork, but as we neared our only-seen-on-Craigslist destination, a nagging worry began to grow in me.  Would the place suck?  Would it be in the middle of the desert and totally depressing (as the scenery going by outside the window seemed to suggest)?  Would we have to keep-- gulp!-- driving?  Find something else?  There was already snow on the ground: Baba G didn't have much more "driving season" left in her.  She certainly wouldn't do well in snow or ice.  What was I getting us into?

Up Next: Our Tiny Winter Abode in South Fork

[Yeah, so it was OK after all...]