This hike lit up my life!

Before I came to New Mexico I read that more people are killed by lightening in this state than in any other. A sobering thought, so when we arrived, I read up on lightening safety. http://www.health.state.ny.us/environmental/emergency/weather/lightning/


As you expect, the best way to be safe is to avoid being outside in a lightening storm. In late August and September the weather cools down to a reasonable temperature, and this is the best time to explore the outdoors. However these months are also known as the "monsoon season" because there are frequent late afternoon showers, often accompanied by stiff winds and lots of lightening. And these storms come up quickly. The weather can go from fair to foul in just a few minutes. 


Not long after we arrived, we got caught in one of these squalls while walking home from the store one evening and it's scary stuff. The storms follow the same pattern. The thunder cracks loudly then rolls and rolls and, as the storm increases in intensity, the rain comes in big drops and the time between seeing the lightening flash and hearing the thunder it produces decreases until you are sure that the lightening is right above your head. That's when you start running for your car or your home praying that you make it without getting skewered by a bolt of lightening and toasted like a marshmallow.


Yesterday, we went on a hike with our outdoorsy friend, Irene. She had signed up as a volunteer with the U.S. Forest System to help survey a segment of one of the local trails in the Sandia Mountains. She had checked out an expensive GPS hand-held device loaded with software to log where you are, the type of use the area is getting, and even to take photos. The data is sent directly to the USFS database, so it's a pretty slick way to monitor trail use. 


We wanted to go with her and we all agreed to leave at 9:00 am. However, there seemed to be no rush. Irene was in the middle of having her front porch paved, the weather was beautiful - not too hot - so a later leave time seemed fine. As a result, we didn't actually get to the trail until 11:30 a.m. 


This was the first time that Irene had used this data gathering system and there was a steep learning curve. The going was very slow the first 0.8 miles up to the place where the trail sign showed we had reached the Upper Faulty Trail, the part we were to survey. It took nearly 2 hours to reach it because we wanted to be sure we could use the GPS system, and we practiced by logging every man, woman, child, and dog we 'encountered' along the trail. 

Finally, we got to the trail we were actually supposed to monitor. There was a very steep climb along a ridge which lead to a heavily forested area with a lot of downed branches littering the forest floor. Everything looked very dry. We were supposed to log any camp sites we found in this area, but we agreed it would be foolish to have a fire with all forest debris to act as kindling. 


As we walked, Irene looked up to see some very dark clouds ahead. We were so close to finishing the assigned area that we decided to push forward. 


Turns out that we were also pushing our luck. We began to hear the rolling thunder off in the distance and those dark clouds were getting closer. Within a few minutes, the thunder claps were close enough together that we knew it was time to turn around. 


Because the trail eventually led to Sandia Crest, our trip so far had been almost all uphill. Turning around, we faced a downhill run. And I do mean run! We picked up our pace hoping to outrace the storm. 


What a futile effort that turned out to be. It began to rain, slowly at first, but soon the big drops were falling quickly and the trail became wet and muddy. Meanwhile the thunder increased in frequency and intensity. We reached the ridge we had just come up and we were completely exposed. The trail was steep with lots of scrabble under our feet. It was easy to slip, so we had to slow down.  


Then we were back into the lower, forested area. That would have felt safer but the time between seeing a lightening flash and hearing the thunder was becoming much shorter. There was a bright flash just above us and to our right. At nearly the same instant we heard a loud crack of thunder. The rain was coming down hard. We had put on jackets, but our pants and shoes were soaked as we ran breathlessly along the trail. 


As I ran, I realized that both of my hands were tingling. It felt like the pins and needles sensation when a part of your body is waking up after 'going to sleep.' It was strong, and I decided that it was definitely not my imagination!! Was I having a heart attack, I wondered, or was I feeling the electricity in the air all around me? I remembered the safety tips I had read:


If your skin tingles or your hair stands on the end, a lightning strike may be about to happen. Crouch down on the balls of your feet with your feet close together. Keep your hands on your knees and lower your head. Get as low as possible without touching your hands or knees to the ground. DO NOT LIE DOWN!


No way was I going to just stand there! I took off my pack and held it out to one side as I ran just in case the metal in the umbrella that was inside it would attract lightening, and I ran... ran as fast as my legs, now getting wobbly with fatigue, would carry me. Irene, who is in much better physical shape than either me or Lee had pulled ahead of us, but Lee was close behind me. 


Soon the worst of that short storm passed. The lightening and thunder decreased and sounded farther away, and the sun had even come out again by the time we reached the car. 


What an adventure! It had taken us about 2 and a half hours to get to the place where we decided to turn around, but it only took 30 minutes to get back to our car!! We were all happy to be together and OK.  


Comparing notes, Lee told me that at the time my hands were tingling, so were his!! Irene said she didn't feel it, but we wondered if she was far enough ahead of us to be out of the electric field we were feeling. Anyway, we all agreed that next time we would get an earlier start. Now, however, it was time for hot showers and a cold pitcher of Margaritas!!!

Earthship Housing - Not just a pretty face!

As predicted, the earth is heating up, and the weather is weirding. It is very scary. However, one forward thinking architect, Michael Reynolds, foresaw the crises and created the Earthship home made of recycled materials such as tires, cans, and bottles. These houses are not only surreally beautiful, they can be entirely self-sufficient and need no outside power or water. People live in them 'off the grid' meaning they have zero utility bills. 

Just north of Taos is a community of Earthship homes, and a Taos real estate agent has gathered together 2 videos that explain how earthships are built and how they function. You can watch the videos on his website. They explain how one home can survive on only 10 inches of rain per year by reusing the same water 4 times! (See the end of this post of photos of the 'systems package' mentioned in the video.) http://taosearthships.com/about.htm  This website also lists several earthships for sale. They are quite affordable and most run from $150,000 - $350,000, with several listed under $200,000. For me, the down side is that most all the Earthships listed are in a hot desert in the middle of nowhere! However, the Earthship Center we visited claimed that earthhips can be adapted for and built in any climate or landscape.


You can also enter 'Earthship' on youtube.com and get the same videos on the website above ("Earthships 101 parts 1 and 2")  and watch them on a bigger screen. There are also many other entries about Earthships on youtube that pop up with a search. 

A few years ago, Lee and I viewed the feature length documentary made in 2007 called 'Garbage Warrior.' You can order the film on Netflix or watch it online for free at http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/garbage-warrior/
This website has the following description of the film. It's well worth watching!


Shot over three years in the USA, India, and Mexico, "Garbage Warrior" is a feature-length documentary film telling the epic story of maverick architect Michael Reynolds, his crew of renegade house builders from New Mexico, and their fight to introduce radically different ways of living.




The day we came to the Visitor Center outside of Taos it was blazing hot, nearly 100 degrees!! And, yes, when you walked inside the building, the temperature was quite comfortable, and the plants in the greenhouse corridor that is part of the building were thriving!! 


Here are some photos I took of the Earthship Visitor Center and also of a building on the same site that is under construction, which offered great views of how and Earthship building is put together. Unfortunately we were not allowed inside any domiciles, but you can find photos on the real estate agent's website mentioned above.


I hope the sheer beauty of these structures inspires you to dig deeper. They are relatively cheap to build and free to live in. 

Outside view of the visitor center. These windows open into the greenhouse that is part of the building.

These are photos of the roof of the Visitor Center. Solar panels face the sun and you can turn around to see the gutter structure on the roof to send rain water into a catchment cistern.

This is a close up of the wall around the Visitor's Center. It is composed of blue bottles in cement over brown bottles in adobe with tires as the bottom layer.

Below is a close up of a 'bottle splice' with the bottom half of the blue bottle butting up against the bottom half of a clear bottle.

This is a new building being constructed. Next will be a close up of those striking pilars. They are made of cement (for structural strength) and aluminum cans (used as filler).

These pillars and facings sparkle like rhinestones in the sun!!

Apparently some wood is also used in the construction. I don't know if these will be left bare or they are only structural and will be covered in some way.

These are photos of the "System package" which is mentioned in the video "Earthship 101" mentioned above. 


Grey water pump

Power organizing module

 Pressure tank

It's no picnic for SW bears.

Don't go into the woods today, you'll be in for a big surprise...
This has been one of the coldest winters and driest summers in Albuquerque's history. The result? The native black bears can't find enough to eat, so they are hungry and are raiding campgrounds. One of the lower campgrounds on the north side of the Sandia Mountains has been closed due to increased bear activity. The sign warns that bear sightings are common. On the way down the East side of the Sandia Mountains, we saw a bear along the highway lifting a big rock probably looking for grubs. Many people stopped to take photos. The bear stopped briefly, looked around at all the folks, and then continued the hunt.

Cloudcroft, NM

Lee and I were tired of Albuqueruqe's unrelenting heat and I was missing the NW. We decided to head for the mountains, but what to do about our cats? Our house trade partner gave us the name of a person she had used many times to house sit for her dog, but I was hoping to find something I wouldn't have to pay for... or at least, not pay much. Our friend, Irene, house sits, and said she would stay with our cats without charge, but I didn't want to impose on her good will. 


After stewing about this for some weeks, I made a call to a pet store in Portland in an effort to find out which cat pan liners we had purchased in the past. They worked well, and I couldn't remember the name. I had forgotten about the time difference and called early in the morning. To my surprise, instead of getting a the recorded message I expected, a woman answered the phone. She was so helpful! She unhurriedly searched our purchase records and then searched out the types of liners they carried. At the end of our conversation I thanked her and mentioned that I couldn't shop personally because I was calling from Albuquerque. On hearing that, she exclaimed that she was visiting Albuquerque in a few weeks. It was a whim, she said, to take advantage of some cheap airline flights she'd found. I found out she was traveling alone and planning to stay in a hostel, so I asked her if she wanted to house sit our cats. Well, the upshot was that she ended up staying with us. She was a delightful person and we all had a lot to talk about because of all the things we had in common. In fact, it turned out that she knew my son from college and had been following his career as the state rep in her district. What good luck!!


Because we had someone to stay at our house, we decided we could drive the distance to Cloudcroft, a mountainous ski area that is billed as a 4 hour drive to our south. (It took us amost 8 hours.) The area is so beautiful. The photos below don't do it justice. There are high mountain meadows everywhere that you view as you drive along the road. In Oregon, you can only see such scenery by hiking into it. The little town of Cloudcroft is composed entirely of small local businesses that stretch out along a old western style board walk. There is not a corporate bone in that town's body and it was clear that the food in the little restaurants was freshly home-made. We spoke to a coffee shop owner who told us it was by design. The town decided to keep all the tourist dollars spent there in their own town economy. Below are a few photos of our trip. Not only did we see Cloudcroft, but on our way home we stopped at the Peter Herd Gallery http://wyethhurd.com/ The Gallery was built by artist Peter Hurd and his wife Henriette Herd who was the sister of Andrew Wyeth. It's a remarkable story of NC Wyeth's dream to produce generations of painters - and he did! You may remember NC Wyeth from his illustrations in Treasure Island, Kidnapped, and Last of the Mohicans, to name a few. He was the iconic painter of western scenes.

This is a rest area along the highway. It's set up on stilts, maybe to keep it cooler. There was a view of White Sands in the distance.

We had the best ever Huevos Rancheros at this Cloudcroft eatery called the Western Cafe.  The beans were home made and so were the tortillas. The whole thing was smothered in green chilies with very little cheese and it tasted like the entire breakfast had no added salt!! Very Yum!!

Even their coffee mugs were non-corporate. I believe this one had someone's name on it. It looked like a gift from one of his family.

This photo doesn't do the scenery justice.

We went on a 3 mile hike. The elevation is nearly 10,000 feet, so we were pretty pleased that we've accommodated to it. Here are a few photos.

Never saw a critter quite like this before. He sure blends into the surrounding rock.

The Paseo del Bosque Bike Trail

We are very lucky in that the house we have traded for is within blocks of a 16 mile bike trail along the Rio Grande, and we have been exploring the city by bike. http://www.cabq.gov/openspace/paseodelbosquetrail.html   We met Irene who is 68 and an avid biker. She has been showing us where the trails are and how to ride along the acequias, which are irrigation ditches connect people's properties to water from the Rio Grande. 


I fixed up my 35 year old bike with new upright handle bars and a more comfortable seat to make it more pleasurable to ride. Both Lee and our friend have fat tire bikes that can be used for biking in soft dirt. My bike has thin racing tires and doesn't do dirt well. On our last bike ride together I rode too near the acequia and went right in the water! What a surprise!! Although the water was still full of soot and dirt from the fires that raged here over the summer, it was cool, and it felt good to ride wet. When I got home and showered, I was surprised that dirt and soot had thoroughly penetrated all my clothing. Below is a photo of me in the ditch. After Lee and Irene pulled me and my bike out of the water, we rode further and found a beautiful old cottonwood tree in a field with bales of straw under it - the perfect place to hang out for a leisurely lunch. 


Yesterday, Lee and I explored the Paseo del Bosque bike trail for 9 miles south of our house. It went past the Bio-Park, past the zoo, past the Hispanic Cultural Center, and on into a beautiful bosque park next to the Rio Grande. The day was rare - in the low 80s with a nice breeze. The ride was nearly 18 miles round trip. Boy, were our butts sore by the time we got back! That evening we made dinner and relaxed in the front courtyard to watch a Labor Day fireworks display over the wall. Pretty sweet life!!





Look closely and you will see a Blue Heron fishing in the Rio Grande.

In places the bike trail borders a peaceful bosque of cottonwoods.

This is me and our friend, Irene. She is an inspiration. She bikes, runs, and eats healthily. No wonder she is in such great shape at 68!! 

Me in the ditch, dirty but smiling!

A delightful picnic under grandmother Cottonwood.