Blogs from Taos, New Mexico, United States, North America

Good morning all! And what a beautiful New Mexico morning it is! Today is the team's day of rest (although I wouldn't say "rest" considering Linda has it jammed packed with goodies galore). let us take you back a day or so....when the unicorns roamed the earth and our team was working on our family's home. Yesterday was a hot one and the sun was exceptionally bright and shining down. Took a bit of a toll on some of us admittedly, but the shade of the "car port" (Amber learned a new term) helped quite a bit. The day consisted of time spent back on the roof by the majority of the team. Tasks included vacuuming (Kim and Peggy conquered their fear of heights and vacuuming), insulated the vents with tarp covering, and David (Dave A. ... read more

Note: sorry about the delay in posts....the Travel Blog web site has been down and their photo up loader isn't working at this time. Hope you are doing well this evening. Can you believe that its already Thursday....wow....does time fly when you are serving you're community. We need to catch you up on a few days of fun and adventure in New Mexico! So.....if you recall the last time we blogged Team Taos was getting ready to hit the road on a "free day". Our team leader Linda had the day jammed packed with interesting sites to visit, shopping, and our favorite....the local cuisine! Mmmm, mmmmm, GOOD! Wednesday was a blast. Our first stop was at the Taos Pueblo. Taos Pueblo is the only living Native American community designated both a World Heritage Site by UNESCO ... read more

Sunday was full of travel for Team Taos. Many of us had to take two flights and then 2.5 hrs in the car getting to Taos. But we were so excited to finally be together and.....to get a good night's sleep. :) Monday morning found a group of intrepid explorers up at the crack of dawn walking for an hour and half in 39 degree weather (they are Amber and Diane's heroes). By 8:30am we were all ready to begin our work. Our plans changed a little bit and we found ourselves working in Taos today (as opposed to Questa where we had originally thought we would be). Today's work consisted on 99% of our team up on a roof - tearing up the top covering and insulation. Our family was having problems with a leaky ... read more

In two days, Team Taos will take to the skies and begin the journey of a lifetime! After all our meetings and months of waiting we are ready to dig in our heels, roll up our sleeves, and begin our week of service through Thrivent Builds with Habitat for Humanity. We are looking forward to learning more about Taos, its wonderful people, and local culture. For many of us, this is our first week long Habitat trip and our anticipation has been "building" for weeks! Keep watching for updates! And to my teammates - can't wait to finally be with you all in person. Just think, no more video or teleconferences! Wahoo! :) ... read more

August 28 – Sunday This morning I drove up I-25 and turned West just north of Bernalillo onto Hwy 550. I took that Northwest to San Yisidro where I went North on Hwy 4. I went through some really beautiful country most notable for the red rocks it has. The rocks are red and the red sand gives all the water and streams here an ink like color. Strange. I stopped at a place called Soda Dam where mineral deposits had formed a dam across the river. After that I went up to the parking lot for the Spence Hot Springs. It required a mile hike and the parking lot was full so I decided that I would wait and go tomorrow (Monday) when the kids were in school and their parents were working. So I ... read more

August 30 – Taos Today went into Taos and went by the visitors center there and they have a really nice setup for free WIFI. There is a row of tables with electric connections along the wall. The people there were very helpful and loaded me down with tourist info. I asked about visiting the Taos Pueblo but they told me that the people at the pueblo were gone on a pilgrimage and would not be back till tomorrow so I said I guess I would stay another day and visit the pueblo then. I invested the day exploring the town and it has a lot of interesting places to see. The square is the usual tourist trap of shops etc. but there were some interesting museums. I went to the Kit Carson Museum and the ... read more

It smells like Christmas this morning! I can smell the pinons and the ponderosa pines in the wind. Robin had a cord of firewood delivered yesterday and I have been outside stacking it. I love stacking firewood – it is like putting together a puzzle. The pieces have to lock in place in just the right way or the stack will fall over on you! The process takes on a meditative quality after a while and you get into a flow. The aroma of the pine wood, the sound of the wood grains locking against each other as you stack and the physical energy it takes all put me in a trance-like state. The mind slows and the body finds a rhythm. At some point I noticed that the pieces of firewood seem to find their ... read more

Hi everyone, Good news! I finally have figured out how to get internet setup out here. ATT sells a MiFi device that acts as a router. Somehow it connects to their network (via satellite??) and it is 4G capable. What that means is it seems to be quicker than most of the wifi spots I have found and I can connect up to 5 computers to it. Yeah, I had to sign a two year contract and buy the MiFi but it is well worth the convenience of having it. The time and energy used lugging my computer down to the coffee shops and the cost of buying coffee on a regular basis made the decision to commit to a contract easier. I am paying $50 a month for 5Gig of data. It was costing that ... read more