We woke this morning to a hot room, the thermostat apparently not working properly. Outside, the temperature hovered at 0C, with a light coat of snow still on the bicycle seats. We packed and headed toward Taos for breakfast, 150km away, via NM 64. There was no traffic, as we climbed to the ridge at 3200 meters (10,500 feet). The temperature dropped to -4C and we encountered icy drifts across the highway in several places. This is very beautiful country, heavily forested with alpine meadows and streams running fast with snow melt from the previous day’s storm.
Back down on the plateau, with the usual New Mexico scenery of sagebrush and distant mountains, we crossed the Rio Grande Gorge and into Taos, which is far from the sleepy little arts and crafts village we remembered, The Purple Sage Cafe, a newer enterprise, was on the south side of town, in a commercial strip far from the old town square. While dining, we noticed a tourist flyer that advertised the Earthship enclave we passed just before the gorge had an open visitor center. So, we headed back through town, now crowded with tourists and locals out for the Mothers Day holiday and the final day of the spring Arts and Crafts fair in Kit Carson Park. Too many people for us.
The Earthship tour was very interesting. We had toured one of these off-grid structures near Florence, Montana, when we lived in the Bitterroot Valley, so we knew what to expect, but seeing one of the original homes and the evolution of the design was inspirational. Earthships are houses made largely of recycled materials and rammed earth, usually bermed, with a solar greenhouse on the south side and a large rainwater collection cistern to the north, relying on the mass of the house to maintain a comfortable temperature. Rainwater and snow melt is filtered and recycled several times, and electricity supplied with wind turbines and photovoltaic panels
After the tour, we stopped at the Rio Grande Gorge to watch rafters negotiate the rapids 200 meters below, then took backroads around Taos to avoid the slow traffic through town, and headed toward our destination for the next few days in Santa Fe.
