Santa Fe & Taos

After we visited with the family for the 4th of July, Jake and I headed to Santa Fe to see my good friend, Harmony. She hooked us up with a great dinner at The Compound where she bar tends. We had plans to hit up the SF Farmers Market the next morning but unfortunately, I had picked up some crazy 24-hour bug and was feeling absolutely terrible. As always, Jake was the perfect hubby and let me sleep in as late as I needed to in the big fluffy, comfy hotel bed. He visited the lobby and brought me my continental breakfast in bed. Once I started to feel better, we did what I always like to do when I visit somewhere new: check out the local Whole Foods. Yes, we visited both the old and the new location. I understand that Whole Foods is ridiculous half of the time. In case you missed the viral picture, I'll share it with you now.

 

Yes, this picture is for real. One of the higher-ups implemented a bottled water program and at my store we make "berry infused" water. Sometimes apple. Sometimes grape. We pretty much add a couple of pieces of produce to some water and idiots buy it for a lot of money. But asparagus? I don't know what this particular Whole Foods store was thinking. I agree with all of the mockery that accompanied this photo. ANYWAY, I'm still obsessed with Whole Foods and I love working there. Like any job it can become monotonous and test your patience, but I just want to be there. It's filled with healthy people who do interesting things. I like being surrounded by energy-rich deliciousness and an eclectic crowd.

From Santa Fe we headed up to Taos to visit the earthship community. Anybody who knows me, knows that building one of these is my dream. Jake and I have been planning on it since before we even knew we were planning on it. I feel like it's part of my calling in life to build one of these and teach as many people as possible about the capabilities we have to live more sustainably. We only have one Mother Earth and every day I think about the disasters we're creating that future generations may not be able to reconcile.

 

The community has close to 100 houses and, little did we know, it backs up to the Rio Grand Gorge. We saw a road sign that said something like Summit Mesa Lookout, so we traveled a mile or two farther down the road from the "museum." The road wasn't exactly paved and it started winding downwards into a canyon. I quickly became uncomfortable, imagining our car breaking down in the middle of nowhere on a road that nobody drives. On one of the switchbacks I looked down the edge of the cliff and caught a glimpse of something incredible. The Gorge was absolutely beautiful. An oasis in the high desert of New Mexico. And yes, my shirt says Trucks, Cowboys, Country Music. It's funny.

We also interrupted some mountain goats crossing the road and jumping up and down the steep cliffs like it was a game. These animals look so much bigger in person than they ever do on television. When we got to the bottom of the Gorge there was a father and son, both in a pair of waders, fishing in the middle of the river. They had a spectacular 360-degree view. Actually, they had a spectacular 360-degree SQUARED view. Any direction they looked, front/back/left/right/up/down, the scenery was amazing. The sound of the water bubbling by. The breeze feeling the perfect amount of crisp on my face. The smell of sagebrush and evergreens. In that moment I was so jealous of what looked like these peoples' every day life. I could just imagine living in the basin of the Rio Grand, fishing for dinner and watching the wildlife. Jake and I took our shoes off and sat on some rocks by the river, letting our feet dangle and freeze in the water. Even on a hot day in July, that water is still as cold as the Rocky Mountains at 10,000 feet.

 On our way home we took the road less traveled, back down past Santa Fe but then headed west on Highway 60. You know what you find between Magdalena and Omega? Well, let me make this easier to grasp- you know what you find somewhere between Albuquerque and Phoenix?... A place called Pie Town. It felt more like Ghost Town. We were driving through on a Tuesday at about 6:30 in the evening and there was no one to be seen. We passed a cabin that looked like the village gas station. And food mart. And law office. The only building in town with a 15 foot mural painted on it's side that read EAT PIE HERE, but there was no one in sight. I had been seeing PIE signs for at least fifty miles before reaching this place, my mouth salivating more with each passing minute, and then when we get there, nothing! What a strange and disturbing disappointment. I just looked up the elevation and it's right around 8,000 in altitude. It's a certain breed of human who enjoys living in a place that borders so closely to the treeline.

We continued on this road where we didn't pass another car for maybe an hour. There just isn't much out there. Somewhere along the way we started noticing satellite dishes out in the distance. Lots of them. Like, maybe 100 dishes spread out over 5 miles. Supposedly, there is a radio observatory that gives tours called The Very Large Array.... but there are a lot more satellite dishes out there than they claim to have on their website. Plus, the fence along the road has signs posted everywhere that says Government Property No Trespassing. It was strange, to say the least. And I'd like to keep believing in conspiracy theories and military coverups and extraterrestrial visitations and time travel experiments and fountains of eternal youth and so on and so forth. It was a good trip.