01-Sep-2007

I’m not sure what you should call me, I’m pretty sure Ishmael isn’t it.  I knew that I had to leave the Washington DC area, I just had not idea where. And I traveled across the country for about 2 years and I was about to embark on a journey across the European continent  just to get this writers cramp out of  me and I kinda figured that if there was a spirit guide helping me then I would let fate take control. Then.

Well, an old acquaintance wrote me asking for some help with alternative broadband issues in the bowels of the barren regions of New Mexico.  Well once again in my life I had been called to visit a place that was absolutely not on my life plan of places to visit. (the first was North Dakota and that is a whole other story).   So, with nothing to do that week of any importance and my love of driving my little Volvo convertible I told my friend I should come out and see in person what the options are.  (talk about a lame excuse for a road trip). So  off I go to the land of Entrapment (The say Enchantment)..  Well, it was a beautiful drive, I like looking at the mesas and flatlands and big sky driving across rt 40 (the old Route 66) in eastern new mexico and driving north was nice. But it was a lot of desert as I expected..  and by the way the cell phone coverage sucked.. (and heaven knows we need our cell phones)..

So, I get to my friends house and she lets me sleep in the spare room (of course her 16 year old son had no clue he was living in a “spare” room).  Well, the following day she says  “hey, want to take a drive up to Taos ? It’s a pretty drive.” And  I  say “sure, I love a road trip”.  So we head northeast to Taos.  Well, it was unbelievable, I felt like I had left the planet and was in some dream world.  And then we went back south to Velarde .

Well, the next day my friend goes off to work and I get in my little Volvo and head back to Taos, and off to the Rio Grand bridge (named the prettiest steel suspension bride in 1966 by none other than the steel bridge makers association).  And there I am standing at the bridge and looking at Taos mountain range having been in New Mexico only about 12 hours or so and I knew that I “needed” to live here. Please understand that I have never in my life felt a “need” to live anywhere. I’ve only felt I should live somewhere else that where I was.

So, after 4 days, I drive back to Virginia (3 day drive) and since I had sold my house months earlier and put all my stuff in storage I rent a truck and trailer and  move all my stuff out to Velarde (the only place with a storage space large enough to hold my 1967 Lincoln I had bought a few months earlier to restore) and I put my Volvo on the trailer. So off I go back to NM and dump my stuff off.   So now I need a place to live, hummm..  well, while I was in NM earlier I had shown my friend how a WEB site can be recovered by recovering a few pages of a web site that her belly dance instructor had lost in the previous year when her web person dropped off the planet and left her clients hanging.  So my friend tells her teacher and then she contacts me about recovery of the site and we make a deal that I’ll help recover her site and she lets me live in a guest house in her back yard (well, a single wide trailer but beggers can’t be choosers. It did have a bed and tv and A/C).  So that gave me a place to stay while I look for more permanent digs.. Okay now I have to head back to DC and finish up some work related projects before I can leave for good..  Of course I haven’t mentioned that everyone I know thinks I have totally lost my mind.  And I’m about ready to agree but like a drug addict I’m still gonna chase my version of a  crack pipe called taos mountain.

Now I have a problem, I can’t get any truckers to get my Lincoln out to NM. So I decide well, I’ll have my friends and client of mine sell my car in their lot for me (they are a Pawnshop).  So I borrow a dolly for the car and start to tow it to Arlington from where I was storing it in Strasburg and I stop to put air in the tires and the guy working at the gas station buys my car, well, he didn’t have enough cash so I took his 1999 Dodge in trade and he gives me his rent money (pissed off his wife when she came down to the station to sign the title)..  well.. I get it to the pawnshop and my pal sells it withing 24 hours (he can sell anything).

And then I have one other issue, my cute little Volvo convertible is not really suited to the upper desert of NM (the closest dealership is 130 miles away). So I decide that I should have a vehicle more suited to NM (they have a strange concept of what a road is).  I searched car lots in Pennsylvania visiting my friend in Altoona and I looked at a lot of car lots in northern VA.  I did find a couple year old Jeep Liberty Renegade model (the one with too many lights on the roof and steel plating underneath) that had been owned by a nice non four wheeling lady that was still under warranty.. I kinda figured I’d get a less beat up 4 wheeler there in Virginia than I would out here in Taos where everything is a 4 wheel adventure.

I need to take this opportunity to mention my feelings and observations I’ve had here in New Mexico.  First, if anyone tells you the Hippy movement has died, they have never been to Taos..  I feel like I am in an episode of the Twilight Zone, I am close to being in a real universe but it’s not quite right.  The  way people drive is really nuts. They will stop for a pedestrian 150 down the street (and that is a good thing) BUT when it comes to other drivers, they would rather block an interstection than allow someone to cross traffic. Absolutely the rudest drivers I’ve met..

Now the dress code is just fun here. Imagine you and your friends all went to grandma’s house and went up in the attic and found a couple dresser trunks full of old clothes and you all just opened them up and put on the clothes in the dark and then you all went off to work… well that’s the dress code here..  Oh.. Oh.. can you imagine that the local radio station tries to find out why there have been power outages and the local power company doesn’t even respond and apparently that is okay around here..  of course I noticed that the local radio station (KTAO.com)which touts itself as the biggest solar powered radio station in the country seems to go off the air when the local power goes off (I know this because I live just down the street from them and I have the lights go off at the same time).

Taos is an interesting place to say the least. If you look at the store hours on the door of most the small businesses here you eventually realize that those hours are more of a suggested starting point of when they will be open. it can vary as much as .. well.. sometimes they just don't open at all, and sometimes they stayed all night meditating and learning new yoga techniques.

 

 

 

remember, my email always works.. calanbyrd@yahoo.com

also remember that at the end of the day, nature gets a turn...