Drive to Taos, NM to Rio Grande Gorge Bridge and Earthship Biotecture

Tuesday, October 13, 2015

We decided today would be our day.  We are going to drive a loop through northern New Mexico.  This was a long drive with lots of beautiful pictures.  I'm breaking this into 2 posts.

This first post will be our drive from Los Alamos to the Earthship Biotecture through Taos.

We drove NM Hwy 68 which followed along side the Rio Grande River for a ways.  Here is one place we stopped.

A little further north on Hwy 68, road construction narrowed the road to one lane.  We saw this beautiful golden tree all by itself while we were stopped.
 

A little further north, we saw this little grove of aspens. 

As the Rio Grande River separated from Hwy 68, you could see this part of the Rio Grande Gorge.  This was before we got to Taos.
 

As we rounded a curve, and almost to Taos, this was our view.  We had to stop and get a picture of the beautiful golden hillsides.

North and west of Taos is the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge.  Isn't it magnificent?!

 This is looking up (north) the Rio Grande River from the middle of the bridge.
 

 This is looking down (south) the Rio Grande River from the middle of the bridge also.

 Here we are standing on the bridge, about the middle.  I thought it was interesting that a "Crisis Hotline" phone was at this viewing point.  See it next to Tic?




From the bridge we headed to the Earthship Biotecture housing area. "An Earthship is a type of passive solar house that is made of both natural and recycled materials (such as earth-filled tires). 
    Earthships are intended to be "off-the-grid ready" homes, with minimal reliance on both public utilities and fossil fuels. Earthships are constructed to use available natural resources, especially energy from the sun. Earthships are designed to use thermal mass construction and natural cross ventilation, assisted by thermal draught (Stack effect), to regulate indoor temperature." Wikipedia.  Check them out at www.earthship.com.

This is the wall around the visitors center.


Those are colored bottles in the concrete wall.

Here's dusty standing at the entrance to the visitors center.

This is the entrance.  There are also glass bottles in this wall.  Pretty door!

Below are pictures of several of the houses including one being built.

This one is still under construction?.

Most of the houses are mostly in the ground.   All very interesting.

Just past the Earthship houses, we saw the Double D Ranch.  Look at the mountains in the background.  What a view they have!

Can you see the reddish on this mountain?  We later learned that is the scrub oak turning colors.  

This is where I am going to stop this post.  Too much to show in one post.

Jemez Mountains just outside Los Alamos, NM

Monday, October 12, 2015

Jessica and James have today off from work for Columbus Day.  In the afternoon, we took a drive through the Jemez Mountains.

Our first stop was at the east fork of the Jemez River.  

Here Dusty is on her way back from her short walk following the river.  Maggie went with her, but she ran ahead and was already back.

This is looking eastward from the river.  The picture below is looking westward on up the road.

This ranch was just across the highway from our stop.  What a beautiful setting!

We drove on up the road past the Valle Grande to this campground.  (I forget the name of the campground.)  We stopped to stretch our legs and let Maggie walk around.  Tic got this shot of the changing leaves on a nearby hillside.

Both the pictures above and below are more views from a pullout on our drive.  

On our way home, we saw this young doe resting in the grass.

This young buck was not very far from the young doe. 

We are truly enjoying our time in this area!

Train in Santa Fe, NM

Sunday, October 11, 2015

James' boys ride the train from Santa Fe back to Albuquerque, to their mother, today.

Here's the Santa Fe train station.

This train is parked, but a similar one will be coming. 

This unique art work was on the side of a building close to the train tracks.

It's not a great picture, but here's Jessica, James (her husband) with two of James' boys, Noah and Tyler from right to left.  Zachary is attending UNM and was not with us.  Aren't they a nice looking family.  Before long James and Jessica will have another son.
 

Lion Cave Trail in Bandelier National Park, Los Alamos, NM

Saturday, October 10, 2015

Tic, James, Tyler and Noah decided they would take a hike.
They took the dog, Maggie, with them.  Jessica and I stayed home and did girl stuff.  Below are pictures from the 3 hour hike.

There's James, the boys and Maggie starting on the hike.

Got to get Tic's dead tree picture in.  Isn't the sky an amazing blue?!

Look, they saw wildlife, a young tarantula.

Look at these rocks they climbed over!!

Closer to the top, the shapes are intriguing. 

Don't you love it.  James is carrying Maggie over these rocks.  They said that later Maggie got braver and started jumping over and across the rocks herself.

I love the colors in this cliff.  They did not climb this cliff.

This is Noah, the younger son, out ahead of everyone else.

They went on up through this canyon.

Looks more rugged than I would have liked.  I'm glad I didn't go.

Tyler decided it was time for a rest.  It was a hot afternoon.  If I remember correctly, it was around 85 that afternoon.

Along the way they came upon this huge shoe print in the rock.  Tic said it was embedded into the rock, not on the rock.  Tic put his walking stick there to show perspective as to the size of the shoe print.  HUGE.

More large rocks and Maggie is crossing them herself.  See her on the left side of the picture? 

However, on the way back to the car, Maggie gave out.  She is not used to hiking like that.  James had to carry her.  

Everyone was hot and tired by the time they got home.  Maggie kept licking her paws so we inspected them.  Turns out she had cut the pads on her back two paws.  Jessica cut off the loose skin, put Neosporin on, and wrapped her back paws with wrap she had for her horse.  I didn't think to get a picture of Maggie with her paws wrapped.

Los Alamos / White Rock, NM

We have already been here about 2 weeks.  We are mostly helping our daughter with things around the house she is not allowed to do during her pregnancy.  We have been able to get out and about some so will be making several posts about our excursions.

This post will be several days of just general things.

This is one of several beautiful sunrises we have had the privilege of seeing from our living room window.

It is a little cloudier this morning, but that makes for a beautiful sunrise.

On one of our drives to Santa Fe, we got this picture of the changing leaves in the Sangre de Cristo mountains.  Beautiful!

This is our daughter's horse Beau.  We feed him in the mornings and evenings.  Isn't he a pretty boy?

Didn't we do a fantastic job of cleaning his stall and spreading fresh sawdust for him?  He was happy!

Here we drove to a scenic overlook in our daughters neighborhood in White Rock, NM.  Far in the distance you can see the Sangre de Cristos also.

Looking the opposite direction from the above picture you can see the Rio Grande River.  This is such a beautiful area!

Another day we went back to the same overlook in White Rock and the clouds were low.  Makes for pretty pictures.

Beautiful!!

Another day the view of the Sangre de Cristo mountains.  There is even more yellow gold on the mountain side.

This is driving up to Los Alamos from Santa Fe.  More beautiful views.  It must be tough for them to live in such a beautiful area! ☺

This is a sunset one evening.  

On to some more specific journeys round the area. 

Los Alamos, NM

I'm way behind on my blogging.  I plan to catch up today and tomorrow.  So here goes...

Wednesday, September 30, 2015

Today we moved to Los Alamos, NM where our daughter, Jessica lives.  We plan to stay 2 to 3 weeks and help our daughter with chores she is not supposed to.

As we were preparing to leave Albuquerque, this was the morning sky.  See the moon between the two vapor trails?

We made it to the White Rock RV Park.  I see that White Rock is not on the sign.  White Rock is like a neighborhood just down the hill from Los Alamos.  Everyone living in White Rock has a Los Alamos address.

This RV park is nothing more than a parking lot with 30/50 amp service at each site.  The sites are not very big.  The Jeep is parked in the sight next to ours.  Currently there are only 3 RVs in the lot.  There are about 16 parking spots.

There is a pet area behind the fence.  The pay station is the only "attendant" for the RV park.  You must pay 1 day at a time using the pay station.  It prints a receipt that "must" be posted, but we have not seen anyone check the receipts.

Both the pictures above and below are our sunrise from the next morning.

What a beautiful sight first thing in the morning.