Blogs from New Mexico, United States, North America - page 5

06-25-21 Summer Trip, Catching Up I am now living in a warmer climate so a winter escape is not necessary but a summer escape sure is. The temperatures were 107 during the day and settling at 80 at night, entirely toooo hot for me. So north I went. My first stop was at Cochiti Lake to visit my friend Lynne. It is located just west of Santa Fe, NM in a little higher elevation so the temps were warm but cooled off at night. We explored some of the area and went to Valles Caldera National Preserve for a beautiful scenic ride to an extinct volcano. It exploded thousands of years ago and what is left is the outer ring, about 10 miles across, and a gorgeous green meadow, home to herds of elk, deer and ... read more

I had a nice drive up the Rio Pueblo Canyon in the Carson N Forest SE of Taos, New Mexico. I passed the Comalas pay Campground. In the 1980s I had a wonderful dispersed camp (on a very rough dirt trail) there by the Rio Pueblo, before the pay Campground was made. Now this is a great camp location, with few other campers, and a low National Forest camping fee. There are other nice forest service camp and picnic areas around this area. I drove past Tres Ritos and found a small bridge over the Rio at the location of my free legal camp. Since I truck camp, I parked in the open near the trees at the Rio Pueblo. It was a very short walk into the trees for a great sit-down, where you can ... read more

I turned South on US Hwy 84 in Colorado. In New Mexico on US Hwy 84, I made a stop to see some wooden Historic Markers. I turned East on Carson N Forest road 115. (Driving the highway at the speed limit you would never see the sign for FS 115.) Driving FS 115 for three miles I turned NE at FS 110 at the Town of Canjilon. Driving on the bumpy FS 110 through the forest service (and some private land) about eight miles when I reached FS 129, a paved road up to Canjilon Lakes. There are a few legal dispersed camps uphill, before reaching the recreational area. At the Canjilon Lakes Recreational Area camping is restricted to two nice pay camp grounds, at the lower lakes. (Most of the few people I see ... read more

blog 07-24-20 There is a tremendous amount to catch up on so I'll try to deliver the shorter version. Last report was the earth ships in Taos. The next day we spent walking around town and visiting the Kit Carson Park which turned out to be a perfect place to walk Watson with lots of shade trees and green grass. He must have rolled 10 times. The park has a famous grave yard where Carson and his wife are buried along with other prominent citizens. On the 17th we hit the road and followed the Rio Grande south toward Albuquerque winding our way through some beautiful valleys with the river, the life blood of the desert. We pulled into Truth or Consequences about 4 pm and we both felt like we came home. We had terrific ... read more

blog 07-15-20 Earthship Today was the day I headed out of town to investigate the Visitor Center. Michael Reynolds, with a degree in architecture, built his first house out of can bricks in Taos in 1972. After years trying other building materials and off-grid systems, he went on to build the first Earthship in 1988. The homes are built with recycled tires that are filled with dirt and sand and stacked like a brick wall. Bottles are added to add light and color and then a coating of adobe over top. Simplistic explanation. The water is attained by catching rain water on the roof and running it into cisterns buried in the berm. It is filtered and used in sinks and showers then runs to the watering system for the indoor plants. The plants filter the ... read more