What a day!!!

What a day!!! It all began quietly enough with lots of fun in the middle, but the end.....we thought the Aliners would blow away and Nancy's trailer would flip!!!

Deb decided to stay home today and said she didn't even get a shower until four o'clock. Nancy had to go find a way to pay her ticket from her Arkansas travels, and Luanne and I decided to head out to see "Earthship" and the steel bridge which is high above the Rio Grande River outside of Taos.

"Earthship" is a community, pretty much a modern day commune, where they have constructed houses of totally recycled material..tires, aluminum cans, bottles, straw..and have attempted to make it completely self sustainable. Rain and snow melt are collected in a cistern, that is filtered for cooking and drinking; then the gray water is sent to huge indoor gardens where flowers and vegetables are raised; then the drainage from there is used for the toilets; then the blackwater is processed before it is released back to the soil. Solar panels everywhere, they are built the back into the earth and the front full glass maintaining 68 degrees year around. They have auxiliary heating available and on demand hot water heaters, and claim a utility bill of $100 per year. Luanne asked about building cost and it is $200 per square foot, about that of conventional construction but low maintenance costs. It was pretty cool and some of the walls were very, very pretty.

We stopped at the bridge over a huge gorge of the Rio Grande. It is a LONG way down and when you walk out to the center of the bridge you can feel the whole thing flexing. I didn't like it when a big tractor trailer rig went over while I was out there!

We headed back to town and met Nancy for lunch at the Graham's Grill which was excellent. There's Graham's Grill in Kirkwood so I was right at home. After lunch we wandered around Taos Plaza and bought few prizes for family. Then we were off to the fly shop, the Solitary Angler, where we bought license, flies and leaders. We are ready for those wily trout in Cimmaron Canyon next week!

I also bought a piece of yard art, a leaping rainbow trout. I should have taken a picture, but didn't. You'll just have to come to the yard to see it!

Then off to the grocery store and we headed back to the campers. It had rained a bit earlier, and we had huge, puffy clouds all day. All of a sudden, almost out of no where, this huge tornadic dust storm hit the area we were driving in. I've been in rain so hard you could barely see but never dust like this, the dust was so thick you literally couldn't see past the windshield, and it was full of stones and debris. I'm amazed the windshield wasn't cracked, and the pictures I'm posting were taken AFTER I managed to get the camera out of my purse to start shooting.

We were sure we would come back to the park to find the Aliners in pieces and weren't sure about the trailer or Saffire. Deb was in the A and said she didn't even know what to do it came up so suddenly. She closed her windows and stood against the side and just hoped it wouldn't collapse on her. The good news is that we all survived and the units are all still standing, but it was very, very scary. It is still dark and it's raining now. We were going to barbecue tonight, don't know if this will clear in time or not. Thunder and lightening are rolling through now.

So that was our exciting day. We are all tired of the winds which have plagued us the entire trip, and Nancy has had more than the rest of us. We are hoping that after this front finally moves through it will be calmer and that we'll have beautiful weather for fishing and dry camping next week.

Tomorrow, if the weather cooperates we'll drive the Enchanted Circle of Northern New Mexico, supposed to be spectacular. Stay tuned......