Boston-NJ 2010

The saga continues! This year, three brave contenders- Melody, Paul, and one we'll refer to as "Chillywag"- will continue the Boston touring tradition. The twitter will provide instant updates, mainly to calm our concerned parents.  Nevertheless, twitter.com/allezmelo should let you know where and how we are along the trip. Or you can just come to this page and read it on the sidebar. Whatever works.

(quasi-unrelated pic) Somewhere in MA. pictured: Foxy and Black Mamba

Hacking the Earthships

"The Phoenix" for sale for $1.5m. interested?

Earthships are passive solar homes made out of natural and recycled materials that allow theirs residents to live off-grid. It's a fascinating concept, and 40 years ago, an architect named Michael Reynolds decided to experiment with various designs to optimize its different functions. Today, there are numerous earthships worldwide. Since off-grid homes are ideal in regions without utilities, there have been some Earthship projects in developing countries. 

For a house to be considered an earthship, it must feature water harvesting, solar and wind power, natural and recycled materials, thermal mass heating/cooling, food production, and internalized sewage system. The end product is a house that has minimal energy bills. It's all pretty nifty, especially for hippies and miscellanous people seeking an alternative lifestyle.

APPLICATION

 I first heard about Earthships when I saw the documentary, "Garbage Warrior."  After visiting their website, I learned of their internships, To apply, you must follow the guidelines listed on their website and submit an application well in advance--at least 6-8 months before the session you intend to attend. I first submitted my application for July in December, and learned (after not hearing from them for a while) that the session was already full. Fast-forward to April, I receive an email telling me that some interns dropped out and there was room for more. and two months later, I was in a car with my great accomplice on our way to Taos, NM. 

There was a period of frustration prior to arriving Taos. The office is short-staffed so email replies are infrequent and it's nearly impossible to get ahold of anybody. My biggest concern was how we were going to survive the month in Taos. The program doesn't provide food nor lodging during the intern session, so interns must fend for themselves. I should note that for $400/month, there is housing for interns, but you still have to buy food. No way. That's more than I would've spend a month on any vacation. So we decided to camp. Sounds easy enough, except for the fact that I am used to camping out in the northeast- trees, mosquito, water, etc etc. not in the desert of New Mexico. Not to mention that one of the staff stressed that it was "very difficult" camping out, as there are rattlesnakes and no water. To be honest, I was expecting relying on my survival skills to pull it through. Never would I have guessed in being so easy. 

SHELTER

Someday, someone will finish this chicken coop.

We camped on the Earthship Greater World Community, not far from the visitor center. There is a flat area available for those want to camp. There is a fire pit and bits of log thrown around for firewood. We felt safe leaving our tents up while we went to the work site. The only danger was getting it ripped out of the ground by the strong winds that roll around in the afternoon. 

Other interns camped in Carson National Forest. It is located higher in altitude and has vegetation akin to the Jersey barrens-- it's a forest. Trees and et cetera. An advantage is that there is a running creek close to some campsites. The donwside is that it is a 30-45 minute commute from the Earthship headquarters. (And did I mention that there was a murder close to an intern's campsite the first week we were there?)

Someone brought his RV and did the RV thing at the RV park located about 5 miles from the visitor center. It's not my scene, but they do have showers...

side view of the "Angel's Nest"

The intern housing is several minutes away from the visitor center in the "Angel's Nest" (or "the Hive" I think they're still playing around with a good name.) --By the way, that link takes you to an old youtube video about the old Angel's Nest. Try not to puke--The building is an Earthship catastrophe and a big, pink enigma. It is what remains of a multimillionaire's cockamamie investment in a pseudo-yoga retreat. Originally a functional Earthship, a millionaire purchased it so his wife could have an illusion of spiritual awakening, or something idiotic of the like. People paid hundreds of dollars to spend a week in this house, sleeping in tiny rooms and doing weird yoga during the day. While you're there ask somebody about the "body condoms." Yeah-it gets pretty weird. The worst part is that the millionaire couple made some expensive additions that compromised the Earthship's functionality, leaving a building that gets too hot during the day, too cold at night, and looks like some type of  extraterrestrial poop. 

I digress, there is a kitchen, (but no refridgerator) so interns must bring a cooler too keep their food from spoiling. There is wireless inside the building, so it comes in handy if you can't stay away from Facebook.  I'm sure that there are other aspects of the Angel's nest that I am not familiar with because we didn't want to pay to live anywhere. It is another source of income for the company, but we were not ready to dig deep in our wallets for this trip. 

TL;DR Do what we did and camp at the Greater World, It's easy, cheap, and you have coyotes as your neighbours and an excellent view 24/7.  

WATER

Our water situation could not have gotten more convenient. There is a rest stop 1.5 miles down the road next to the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge. It has plumbing. Toilets and a water pump. Nice. 

FOOD

My accomplice stocked up on canned foods for this trip. We ate at our campsite almost every day, except for when we wanted to take a break from canned chicken. Check the "food" section of the previous post for tips on dining out in Taos. ProTip: Sid's Food Market, located on the main street is apparently dumpster diver-friendly. The store closes at 8pm. Arrive at least 30 minutes in advance to collect their goods.  Some interns went to see what they could find, but came back empty-handed.

WEATHER

Taos has fairly predictable weather. It is sunny an average of 300 days/year. We were there for the month of July. During the day, the temperature waivered in the 90s, but the temperature dropped by about 20° at night. Strong winds enter in the afternoon and seem to spin around on the mesa before they move beyond the distant mountains or dissipate. At times, these winds bring in rainclouds that may or may not burst as they cross the mesa. These often leave with the winds. When you're lucky they throw hail. By nightfall, expect a clear night and stars stretching across the sky. 

When the sun didn't wake us up in the morning, it was the heat. The air inside our tent heats up very quickly in the morning. Sometimes I woke up sweating in my sleeping bag. Gross. 

TL;DR, Hot by day, cold at night, lots of wind and sometimes hail.

THE WORK 

It's all manual labour that can be adjusted depending on your skill level. What you do depends on what phase of construction is the worksite. The interns that have done previous work in construction did some carpentry on the site. We all became well acquainted with mixing cement and adobe plaster and mortar.The crew tries to expose its interns with as much variety as possible- which wasn't much more than laying bottle-walls, plastering, digging, mixing, pounding tires, making basic installations. 

If you wanted to learn anything, you have to ask the foreman or crew. Interns do have classroom time, but it is only one hour a week (and not the first week..for whatever reason). For a four week session, we spent 3 hours learning, and about 127 hours working. There is something to be said about what you might learn through the hands-on experience you receive on site. But let's get real, "volunteering" is a more appropriate title to what we were doing. 

I recommend the 'internship' to anyone who has a month to spare and who won't mind the opportunity cost of giving free manual labour. Don't get me wrong, it is rewarding, especially when you see how the site progresses during the week. There is a solid familial bond between everyone in the crew and they make sure to include you in their greater Earthship family. There are very interesting individuals who dedicate their entire lives to Earthships. It is definitely worthwhile going back there for another round of beers. 

in the Land of Enchantment: Taos, NM

From here on forth, allezmelo will be designated for travel bugs only. Sticking true to the adventurous theme of allezmelo, the entries that follow will cover my latest excursion to the great mesa of Taos, NM. I spent a month down there with my beloved friend. It will be impossible to document all that we've seen in a single entry. Even this entry is pretty lenghty, but I chopped it into different sections.

The drive from El Paso to Taos was an experience on it's own. Before this summer, I've never left the shady groves of the east coast. I couldn't stop taking pictures once we entered the "Land of Enchantment". As we neared Taos, the highway turned to state road NM68 which cut through the valleys of northern New Mexico. It was a scenic drive through sage-spotted hills, with a couple of small towns in between. A trio of tepees welcomed us to the southern branch of Taos.

Driving down US HWY 64 (a.k.a. "Paseo del Pueblo Norte") takes you straight through the hub of town. Once we passed the WalMarts, Wendy's and McDonald's, the road suddenly changed-- traffic slowed down and pedestrians popped out of hidden alleys. We passed the town plaza, where the streets are lined with adobe galleries, boutiques, and restaurants. Tourists were everywhere. California, Alaska, Colorado, Florida, Texas, Kansas, Massachussetts, we saw license plates from all over the place. People drove hundreds of miles to wander through the mysterious town of Taos. A mile down the road, kitschy shops came down to a trickle and cowfields interrupted the line of stores and supermarkets. We were on our way to the Mesa. 

About four miles down, we hit the Ole Blinking Light, a four-way intersection that decides whether you enter the Taos Ski Valley, the mesa, go straight back to town, or leave Taos for the next town over, some 20 miles away. We made a left and headed to the mesa, where it seems that everything goes and no one really cares.  Homes were sparce, save for the litter of trailer homes that appeared every now and then between sagebrush. Several miles ahead, we saw a steel cantilever bridge that connects the land divided by a 700-foot gorge carved by the Rio Grande. (Appropriately named the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge.) Vendors were set up on the roadside to add to the roadside curiosities. They were selling the same things you'd find in town- cowboy hats, turquoise jewelry, wooden carvings, emu oil, and "really good jerky." A colorful old schoolbus, dubbed the "Hippy Bus," sold ice cream and coffee. Not reccomended, unless you want to donate some bucks to the hippies who live in it. For the price of a scoop of ice cream, you can buy a pint of the same exact ice cream at a WalMart. Not a bad business plan- resell scoops of ice cream for the price you paid for the gallon. 

View from one side of the gorge. Notice the clouds.

There were two men with leathery brown skin sitting at a booth selling jewelry. I poked around their display tables and started conversation when one of them tried to convince me to buy something I didn't need. I asked him how long he's been making jewelry- "since always." I caught him say something in spanish and then I asked him where he was from. He replied that he was from Taos. Thinking that he didn't understand my question, I asked him where he learned spanish. But he insisted- he was a Taoseño. "Spanish is my language." He was born in Taos, raised in Taos, and will die in Taos, but spanish is his language. It struck me how deep the history of the southwest has soaked into the daily lives of the locals. Any other place in the country, people would identify that their family came from Mexico and passed the language to the next generation. Here was this guy, an American from Amurikah, asserting that spanish is his language. It's something I wouldn't expect in a place where you see "You're in America- speak English" bumper stickers flying around. 

Another 1.5 miles and we noticed a pair of buildings by the road sticking out from the flatness of the mesa. They looked like something out of a Dr. Seuss book. We had arrived at the Earthship's visitor center. For the next month, we would be setting our camp about 500 feet from the visitor center. For the next month, these odd-shaped buildings marked the entrance to our home. 

Enough of this long introduction. Needless to say, we learned a lot about Taos during our stay. On to more travel-related topics:

The town plaza is where you collect your Taos mementos. Many shops sell crafts allegedly made by the Pueblo Indians (After all, the Taos Pueblo is located 5 miles from town), but these will cost you a pretty penny. There was a nifty store (Seconds Ecostore) in the historic John Dunn Plaza that sold goods made out of recycled materials. I later learned that the owner's husband works full-time for Earthships. According to a brochure I picked up, 30% of the Taos population are artists, which explains why every other store is an art gallery. I never do more than window shop, but it's pleasant walking around, nonetheless.

FOOD

We had a meager budget, but when ramen and canned food didn't satisfy our foodie tastes,  there were a few places that relieved our cravings. The SuperSave discount foods store, located south of town had a wide selection of hispanic/mexican foods. During the day a tortilla machine prepares freshly-made warm tortillas. In the evening, they mark down the price of prepared foods. You can buy a good-sized chicharron burrito for no more than a buck. There is a yellow tamale truck parked permanently in the corner of the parking lot where you can satisfy your tamale/burrito/torta needs for relatively cheap. 

If you're looking to dine out, skip all the restaurants and go to Doc Martin's. I gague good food on how many days/weeks/months after the meal I salivate thinking about it. Doc Martin's is it. With rattlesnake-rabbit sausages, elk burger, and bison steak, it has a menu for any exotic pallate. Their duck and goat cheese quesadilla with pumpkin mole was exquisite. The bonus: If you go between 5:00pm-6:30pm, you get a free entree (salad or chili). 

It may seem unsurprising that Doc Martin's would shine after weeks of eating canned tuna, but we also ate at Michael's Kitchen Cafe and Bakery after a friend's recommendation. This place was more like a diner than any cafe and bakery I've ever visited. The restaurant is highly rated but the plate didn't meet my expectations. I wasn't convinced. Ultimately, it comes down to a matter of quantity over quality. 

TAOS PUEBLO (http://www.taospueblo.com/) 

This is what Taos is known for, and this is its primary source of inspiration. Native American influence is found everywhere, from kitschy tourists traps to fine art galleries. Wikipedia cites that 1,900 Pueblo people are living there today. They held a powwow during the time we were there, so we went to check it out. Everyone, including toddlers, were decked in bright colors, bells and feathers. Outside the performances, there was not much. Vendors circled the powwow with food and crafts and even more kitsch, but all was forgiven. They have to make money somehow.  

We went to the pueblo on a cloudy day. Only a section is open to the general public. The rest is closed to non-members. There were small family-owned shops selling even more trinkets and mutts running around everywhere, with some curious white foks poking about.  The Pueblo was old and tired. It felt as if the it couldn't stop sighing. The overcast made our visit a even more depressing. One of the shops had bare walls with beaded necklaces hanging on nails on one side, and some bags of horno-baked bread sitting on a table against the other side. At the entrance sat an elderly lady who sat like a statue and reminded me of a modern-day living ent. We gave her $4 and walked away with a slice of her homemade cherry pie. You don't say 'no' to anyone who resembels the ghost of your grandmother.  As we stepped out from her shop a mutt jogged up to us. I took one look at him and my heart broke even more. Its left eye was infected. There was an oozing green and pink orb rolling around in its socket. 

We walked around the perimeter but didn't stay too long at the pueblo. 

HOT SPRINGS

There are several natural hot springs along the Rio Grande in Taos. I won't disclose their location for fear of spilling a local secret--they're not really advertised in any of the tourist brochures. However, anybody who lives there knows where they are, and  Google probably has a plethora of information about them anyways. Ojo Caliente is the other set of hot springs. The town revolves around the resort and spa that was built around them. For only $20 you can sit in hot pools with other people. After weeks of living in the desert and doig manual labour, Ojo Caliente was a soothing escape. But I still would rather hike down to the Rio Grande and have a hot pool to myself. The view is unmatched. 

THE MESA

The Mesa has a culture of its own. It attracted a filmaker to summarize the area and its people in an exaggerated documentary, Off the Grid: Life on the Mesa (released 2007).  It is worthwile mentioning that while some of the people interviewed for the documentary do exist, the majority of those who live on the mesa just want to have an unconventional lifestyle. What is true is that the Mesa has a "Las Vegas effect" where what happens on the mesa stays on the mesa. 

We picked up a hitchiker who told us he was 17, but looked no younger than 21 on our way to town one day. He hitchiked to Taos from Florida the previous year for the Rainbow Gathering. --Y'all are working for Earthships for free? Why? You're living in a tent? Sounds like you guys aren't well off, I can help you guys out, if you want. Sayyy, d'you guys need bud?-- says the 17-year-old with a 3-year old son in Florida. Plenty of irony in the fact that he pitied us, but all in good spirit. Told us that if we ever want anything, just wait in front of a downtown coffeeshop and someone will have what we're looking for us. Anything. Also told us that a we could buy a half acre of land on the mesa for $400. And that he's selling his van for $600, in case we were interested. Our exchange with the hitchiker is much more accurate than a 68-minute documentary.

Taos can be summarized in a comment another intern made- Taos is cool, but it does have a creepy side. Two murders and at least one suicide (off the Gorge Bridge) occurred while we were in town. Not to mention that a fellow intern was chased by a chainsaw while he was visiting a friend. Taos is a center of cultural and historical richness, but it does has its sinister side.

Nonetheless, the mystique and beauty of Taos is in its landscape. I miss being able to escape the busy noise of town and find tranquility in the desert. I miss watching sunset in a 360° panoramic spectacle of light against the mountains. I miss listening to the chorus of coyotes and seeing the milky way and the billion stars, and feeling infinite and insignificant against the grandeur of the natural world.