God Loves Rascals
Magdalena to Lawrence, more wind, more dirt
Fond as I am of the little house in Magdalena, it was time to say goodbye and move along.
Back down the long slope toward Socorro, then north to Santa Fe. The landscape shifts; the juniper isn’t as dense here.
It’s my good fortune to have a friend with a daughter who lives on a ranch where they keep mustangs. Having been a horse-crazy girl, western paperbacks featuring mustangs were a favorite of mine. I’d never seen cottonwoods and box canyons, let alone real mustangs.
So a visit was arranged, and on the way there I enjoyed seeing some backroads around Santa Fe. It really makes me want to get off the highway when I meander my way back home, and have more time.
Liesl and I were introduced to a couple of placid eldering mustangs first. Liesl really seems to like horses and is happy to bump noses and be snuffled by them.
Then the other ranch dogs arrived. One doesn’t care for this strange rat-weiner on her ranch, but Luna and Liesl start to get along after an initial meet-and-sniff. Luna is a mix of too many breeds for me to remember—except for the bit of coyote. She is an exceedingly cool dog, and I was happy she warmed up to us.
We ride down into the ranch and the main herd of mustangs are called in to enjoy a bale of hay. They are quite friendly and it is amazing to be able to walk among them, to touch them. To be honest, it is a little awkward to just kind of land on someone elses’ place and expect them share their animals like this, but my hosts are incredibly gracious about it and I am thrilled to enjoy the experience.
They ask if I want to see, “the boys.” I’m not sure if I’ve imposed enough, but when she says, “They’re kind of flashy,” I laugh and nod yes.
Flashy indeed; high spirited and beautiful. I love how they are cared for here, too: these are not horses for riding (though some could be, and all are halter-trained). These horses are here because they belong on the landscape. Beautiful among the cottonwoods, I feel like I’ve stepped into one of those childhood books.
We see a coyote on the way out of the ranch. Luna the ranch dog had been watching for them.
From the ranch, Liesl and I head toward Taos. I want to see the Earthships, and am hoping to jump onto an afternoon tour.
I visited Taos Pueblo with a friend a few years ago, to watch the San Geronimo Day Festival, and specifically to experience an ancient and sacred form of clowning. I hadn’t realized that the earthship center was here also, or I would have tried to work in a visit then.
Earthships are a form of architecture (they say “biotecture”) with the goal of building self-sustaining homes. You can learn more about earthships in this video, which explains it better than I could do:
Earthships are often described as something innovative and new—and certainly, there are innovations and a systems-thinking approach that has everything in common with permaculture. However, people have been living in homes built into earthen embankments for centuries. And one only has to visit Taos pueblo and learn about the dwellings there to realize that this is another form of permaculture’s “cutting edge of a 10,000-year-old idea”.
What is new about earthships is that they are considered beautiful and coveted even by people of our modern culture. I enjoyed walking through the demonstration earthship, especially getting to experience the atrium greenhouse and feeling the cool walls of the naturally temperate interior. The polished cement floors are gorgeous, and it had the sense of wholesome serenity that I find in good natural building of any kind. These would probably make exceptional dwellings in tornado country.
Alas, guided tours are only on weekends. But the self-guided tour was good, with lots of signs pointing out features as you walk through.
You might be thinking that all this building with tires and old cans and dirt and reclaimed materials would also come cheap. It doesn’t. There’s a lot of labor and earthmoving involved; the materials at the site say that when all is said and done, it’s about the same cost as building a traditional house. Of course, now that you’ve built an earthship, you’re done paying for power, heating and cooling, water, and even some significant food. And done something infinitely more interesting than built a stick house.
My campsite for the night was about a mile from the earthship center. The wind is ferocious again. If found this site via HipCamp, something like AirBnB for camping, with private landowners creating campsites on their land. My host is building his own house here on the Taos Mesa, and currently lives in some kind of self-built cabin. This area is full of self-built homes because local ordinances allow it, making New Mexico a sort of mecca for natural building.
The campsite is a couple of panels of homemade wood fencing to serve as a windbreak to a small gravel pad. Maybe fifty feet away is the “outhouse”, a three-sided shelter facing out over the vast scrub mesa, with a bucket toilet.
The hosts dog tries to meet Liesl when I get out of the car, but a neighboring pit bull also barges in, and is so aggressively friendly, I just get back in the car and wait until he goes home. Eventually, he does, but it’s too windy to get out and do anything anyhow.
My host, Rob, reassures me that it will die down by 6pm, so I wait in the car until then; do a family zoom call and get some more work done. I try to put the hatch tent on give me some extra room, but one of the straps breaks off when I try to cinch it down against the wind, so I give up.
The wind does die down, and I get my regular tent set up before dark. Rob comes out and helps me with the rainfly. Liesl gets to run and play with his dog for a bit, then everyone retires for the night.
I have trouble keeping warm and have a fitful night. The coyotes sing before dawn. I decide to just break camp and get out of here. The dust is relentless. Everything is dirty, including the inside of Thirsty since I’d left the sunroof open by accident. I also can’t figure out how to get the interior lights to stay off with the doors open, something I swear I have been able to do before (I wear an idiotic fanny pack with both car keys all of the time because the electronic locks give me similar grief). I cringe over what I am doing to Rob’s morning with endless car door opening and closing. I just can’t get it together.
Finally, I drive out the dirt road, considering that it’s better than the mud it certainly turns to when it does rain. Everyone here is worried and wanting rain. But I was stuck in Taos mud on that earlier trip and it’s no joke. Once I’m on the pavement, I vow to stay there no matter how I am routed out of here. There is too much earth-dweller trickster energy here for me. This is not your cute Santa Fe turquoise coyote trickster energy...this is the-earth-will-eat-you trickster energy and it is not my thing.
I had hoped that Siri might route me through town and a handy espresso stand. The phone routing apps are wonderfully convenient, but as a single person traveling, I miss having one person able to drive and the other navigate, to double-check the route or see if there are interesting stops just off the beaten path. I don’t play with the idea of side trips here, though. Not in Taos.
The landscape is gray, short scrubby vistas. Wildfire haze hangs in the air here, just like it does back home. I stew in my own stink, not bothering to change clothes since everything is filthy anyhow.
The drive winds next to mountains and through open rangeland. Wild horses graze next to the road, showing off some new leggy foals. Red-tailed hawks soar and sit on posts; I hope for Golden Eagles, but don’t see any.
I stop for gas in a small town. I need a bathroom and the women’s room has an out-of-order sign. The men’s room doesn’t open. “Do I need a key for the men’s room?” I ask the petite clerk. ‘No the men’s room is out of order.” After a confused exchange, we establish that the women’s room is working and I may use it. Thank god.
Gassing up here turns out to be a lucky break. Colorado flattens out and we travel long empty roads. There are no services; there is nothing at all, not even signs warning of no services. I drive on and on, past fields of...what? I don’t even know anymore.
Finally, we come to Cheyenne Wells, and guzzle gas for $3.69 a gallon.
Just before the Kansas state line, golden fields begin to appear, and Kansas is all golden and blue-sky, just as you might have imagined it. Red-taileds share the skies here with Swainson’s Hawks. And wind. Endless wind.
I think about trying to get all the way to Lawrence in one shot, but it’s too much. Too much for me, and too much for Liesl. We get a hotel room.
After getting settled and giving her dinner, we go for a potty walk. I’m happy that she can finally get on some grass, but she stops almost immediately and lifts a paw...she’s gotten stuck on a goatshead sticker. She starts avoiding grass altogether.
She raises her head and takes long sniffs at the air. “That’s rain coming,” I tell her. I can smell it, too. Being able to do so delights me. Things are waking up.
In the morning, we do a full reset. I’ve got a zoom call and the hotel washer is out of order, so we get out early and find a laundromat in Hayes to hang out at for a while. I use a big washer with small load and set it to heavy duty—get all this Taos earth out of these clothes, please (I fully expect the washer to break down) and prepare to camp out in the car with Liesl, doing zoom.
The zoom call is a no-show, so I stand with the passenger door open and work on the dog-chariot some more, improving the sun shading. I try to make room for a pickup pulling in, but the driver says he has plenty.
He steps out of the truck, a tall guy with bright blue eyes. “Where in California,” he asks, without preamble. I tell him Santa Rosa, and he tells me of his love for Big Sur. The only place he loves more than Big Sur is the French Riveria. “You haven’t seen Europe,” he tells me, a couple of times, “If you haven’t been to the French Riviera.”
He goes on to tell me that that’s why he still works. He builds hotels now. He has oil wells, and rental properties, all this passive income. He doesn’t need to work. But all he wants is a humble little place on the French Riviera. Well, that and he likes it. He likes figuring things out, taking risks.
He asks about my trip; says he can drive to Miami in two and a half days, but he’d rather fly a jet and be there in a few hours. While he talks, he cleans a stain on his jeans, which is evidently why he’s shown up at this laundromat. For a while I think he might own the place, but realize he’s just been clever about where to get a stain out quick. He goes on to explain why he likes flying jets better than prop planes, and how he likes the rush of take-off and the focus that landing them requires.
This sounds like a long conversation, but it was rapid-fire and quite enjoyable. He starts for the door, saying he’s late for a meeting. “You’re a good listener,” he says. I don’t tell him that I was trained to be, almost from birth.
“Well, you’ve got a good story,” I tell him. Who knows if it’s real or not.
“I’ve had an interesting life,” he laughs, “And I’ve been very fortunate.” I wonder if he is one of us. He’s got the happy, joyous, and free thing down, for sure.
He heads out the door and gives me a wink. “If there’s a God in heaven,” he adds, “He loves rascals.”
I nod and smile. “I think so, too.” And off he goes.
He’s not the only one with an interesting life.
I continue to regroup in Hayes, finding a car wash to get Thirsty all sudsed up and attempt to scrape the fauna of five states off her. I can’t get it all, but am happy for the clean windows for a couple miles. We aren’t far down the highway until they are spattered again.
It’s a shorter drive today into Lawrence. We are fighting wind all the way. I flash my lights to let a trucker trying to pass know I’ll let him in. We’re heading over a bypass as he moves back over to the right lane, and the wind gives him a scary shove to the right. I don’t know how these guys do it; Thirsty with her cargo box on top shudders and shakes.
As we near Topeka, the terrain gets hillier, and greener. Redbuds bloom among the lacy budding greens of other trees.
I’d gotten a tip from a former coworker who now lives here, about campsites at Clinton State Park. In short order, I get a site for two nights, from exceptionally friendly park staff. Nice place.
After getting the tent up and resting for a while, we go back into town for supplies. A pet store visit for Liesl, mostly just to give her something fun to do. And I find the local grocery co-op which has something completely different from anything else I’ve seen on this trip: people wearing masks.
It also has delicious fresh salads, unsweetened yogurt, and the exact tea strainer I left and home and wish I’d brought on the trip.
So Liesl and I are back at our campsite now, having indulged in our treats for the night. We’ll get rain tonight; I’m confident in the tent, I just hope I can be as confident in how I’ve put it up. Liesl is cautiously trying out the grass, and I showed her how to sample dandelions...she’s not a fan, but was happy to try them.
It’ll be nice to settle in for a couple of days and not drive much for a day...though we’ll go out and explore a bit later.
Wow, it's been quite an expedition so far. Yes, you've no doubt passed a lot of interesting places and things to do. Too bad Liesl can't co-pilot for you. Drive safe. Driving thru Kansas City is challenging at times.