Taos NM Revisited - Part 1

We returned to a different RV park in Taos in mid-July for a month, determined to have a better visit than when we had our electrical/microwave problems.  Taos Valley RV Park is in town and, although it is not nearly as scenic, it does have good power.  Ken and Betti Hendrickson joined us here also.  We are in spaces 80 and 81, but guess what?  They ARE NOT together.  We have been getting lots of exercise walking back and forth.

Sandy's sister and her husband, Dottie and Jerry, arrived for 8 nights in their new trailer.  We had such fun touring with them, and our first adventure was to see the Rio Grande River Gorge.  It is much prettier in person, but this will  give you the idea.

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A food vendor at the Gorge.  Somehow, we avoided a morning snack here.

Alan, Sandy, Dottie and Jerry.

 

One of several vendors selling all kinds of goods.  This fellow had part of a tree stuck in the guardrail and he called it his "branch office!"

 

Our next stop was to visit the earthship houses, a community of passive solar homes designed and marketed by Earthship Biotecture outside of Taos.  They are built mostly out of recycled/reused items and use very little (if any) power or water that they do not generate themselves.  Most of the food consumed is grown in the home in a greenhouse type area or in various parts of the water recycling system.  As a visitor, we could not drive through the area, but toured the visitor's center to learn about the community.

 

 

 

The base of this wall outside the visitor's center is constructed of "pounded tires," used tires that are filled with dirt and pounded.  Each tire weighs between 700 - 800 pounds and is most often used to build the walls of the homes and then covered with adobe.  Much of a home like this is built underground with the exposed part facing the sun.  The wall construction keeps the heat in during the winter and keeps the house cool in the summer.  The bottles in the wall above are not necessary to the structure but are used for decorative purposes.  In homes, walls with bottles in them let in light.

Visitor's center building.  Notice the "greenhouse" on the left.



Pounded tires.

 

 

 Visitor's center building from a distance.

 

 

 A house under construction.  Note the funny-looking top to the turret on the left!???

To me, this looked like Tune Town at Disneyland.  All curvy walls.

An administration building under construction.

 

 

Just in case you might think these homes are inexpensive to build, several are for sale in the high $300,000's. 

 

In some ways, it is not too different than living in an RV - having to manage your power, etc. but as soon as I learned managing their limited water (collected off the roof) meant not showering every day, I knew it wasn't for me!