Taos, NM

Change of direction...

Hey, it's cold here in Colorado. We'll save Colorado Springs for another time. Let's head south into New Mexico...maybe it will be warmer. Nope...we start out in Taos, which is in the high dessert at around 7,000' elevation, and it's still cold.

In Taos, we stay at the Taos Monte Bello RV Park. We were the last newbies (folks who hadn't stayed at the park before) that John, the owner, was taking in for the winter, so it was very quiet while we were there.







We venture out our first evening to find some Southwestern Mexican food. What we find is Orlando's, a very quaint yet colorful place.

Food's spicier than we're used to but still good.

One of Tom's first orders of business while we are here is to fix the water leak! So, he's back to crawling around under the coach trying to track down that pesky leak. Success! What he found was The Beast was plumbed from the factory with an ice maker hose. It was terminated with a plastic cap, which developed a hairline crack over the years. It finally cracked open in Gunnison Colorado (about a week prior to these pictures) resulting in a puzzling leak that started behind the refrigerator and worked its way down the undercarriage, where it was very hard to track down.

After fixing the leak, Tom cleans up, and we attend a lecture on "The Role of Forest Management in an Era of Climate Change." The lecturer is Jens Stevens a UC Davis grad (wouldn't yah know).

The next day, we're off to drive the Enchanted Circle Scenic Byway. While there we stop to hike along the Elliot Barker Trail.

We cut the hike short when it starts to hail because we didn't exactly dress for the weather.

Just outside of Taos is the Earthship Biotecture community. Earthships are passive solar homes that are built of car tires filled with earth and covered with adobe. The front facing of the houses are greenhouses that provide food as well as heat for the house and use grey water to irrigate the plants before being returned to the earth. Very interesting structures...