Taos was cold and windy, and we were going to leave after only 1 night there, but decided to get a visitor's guide and check it out. We started with New Buffalo, the destination of Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper in Easy Rider. It's a hippie commune that was bought 5 years ago by Bob Fies, a retired doctor, who has spent tons of $ and time restoring the main house. What a great place! They are attempting to live off the grid completely, doing lots of organic gardening, solar, battery power, and cysterns. We may do some work camping there next fall.

Then we visited the "earthships" which are entirely self sufficient and very cool! They use their water 5 times (gathered in cysterns from the rain), utilize solar panels and battery power, and the homes are built out of old tires and adobe. So Bob & I bought 3 books to learn how to do this. Not sure what we'll do with that information yet, but I'm sure it'll be useful at some point.

Now we're in San Acacia, NM with our rancher friends, Steve & Raylene. We've been here for a week, and are helping out around the ranch. The economic crumble has hit them pretty hard, and while they have 52 acres and 50-some horses here, they are unable to afford ranch hands, so Bob and I are lending a hand. Will probably stay here for another week or so then travel pretty fast to the Keys.

Bob was on WAPL last Friday for the 30th anniversary! He phoned in and talked to Rick & Len & Roxanne & Joe & John for about 20 minutes. I picked it up on the internet...it was great to hear him on the air again!

Waylon is having a blast here with Doc, a 1 yr old black lab. They have the run of the ranch, and he's getting pretty comfortable with horses finally. We haven't been able to do any riding; all these horses are breeders or race horses. And speaking of which, we went to the race track last weekend to watch one of their race horses, Lonesomedove run (her maiden race). Raylene bottle fed this colt for 3 months because here mother rejected her. She came from the back of the pack (7 horses), and won! It was very exciting! She was a long shot at 25-1, so needless to say, I won a couple bucks on the race!

The weather here is gorgeous. We've only been here in the winter, so it's great to see all the green this time of year. It's been in the 70's during the day yet, and a little chilly at night. Another place we could possibly settle down...

Made it to Durango, CO last Tuesday. Another gorgeous place! Rick & Pati from the Baja trip live here, and we've spent some good time with them. A couple dinners in this very charming town, and drove up to Silverton one day (a tiny little mining town at 9500 ft. that reminded us of the town in "Northern Exposure". There's a cute little train that goes up there twice a day, but it's $75.00/person, so we decided to drive. It's mostly closed for the season, but we found a great little bar and had fun!

We also found the best dog park ever near our campground. It's about 5 acres, bordered on one side by the Animas River, and the other side by a mountain, then fenced only on the north and south side. Waylon loves it, and we've me some great people and dogs!

Rick and Pati are leaving for a trip to Italy on Wednesday, so they're quite busy, but we had a weekend visit from Joe Rooyakkers and his friend Lori. Also had a great time with them. Golfed yesterday, did a little biking, and went to Pagosa Springs today (about 1 hour east of here). A great little resort area that boasts the most healing springs in the states (or was it the world?). There were 20 pools, each one a little warmer than the next. We all felt great after an hour of soaking, then Joe and Lori headed back to Winter Park, and Bob & I had dinner with Rick and Pati, and are now pretty exhausted!

Will probably leave here Tuesday and head to Taos, NM, then San Acacia, NM.

How 'bout them Packers today?!

Looks like we left Triumph just in time...heard it's snowing there today! We're in Cottonwood, AZ with Rockin Randy & Tammy, who are considering early retirement also. Trying to give them help with their decision making process, but since we arrived, our camper water pump went out, we've ordered a new one (last Monday), but their 2-day delivery promise isn't looking good (it's Saturday and still no pump). Planned to leave here this Monday, but we need that pump. Also, the turbo on the truck took a dump, and the truck was in the shop for 2 days. We do spend a lot of time at repair shops! Anyway, it seems we've confused them even further. But we're having a blast here. It was in the 80's the first couple days, but got very windy and 60's today. Randy & I went horseback riding a few days ago. He has a horse (part of their traveling dilemna), and we borrowed a horse for me, a 20 year old quarter horse named Annie. She was great! We went a couple miles through the mountains, very rocky terrain with lots of cactus and fortunately no rattlesnakes! It was awesome!

Last night we went to the "Bull Bash"; Camp Verde Days was an annual carnival type thing with bull riding in a very small arena, and we were up close and personal with the bulls & riders. One kid appearred to get trampled right in front of us! He walked away and didn't get carted away in the ambulance (paramedics checked him out), but it was ugly. 2 more riders were hurt after that. Rodeo's were more fun when everybody walked away unscathed.

Today we drove to Sedona. What a beautiful city. Walked around a bit and had a couple margaritas. Then stopped in an art gallery...Randy wanted to talk with an artist he likes, and Bob and I felt a bit out of our element. Most of the pieces in there were more expensive than our bikes, motorcycles, computer,...

Tomorrow is golfing then football. Hopefully it'll warm up a bit! Sorry...it looks like the rest of the country is getting cold.

We're finally leaving Triumph tomorrow.  Decided to stay on an extra week, well, because we could.   The fall colors are spectacular!  So we've done a few more hikes checking them out.  Plan to go to Cottonwood, AZ from here to see Rockin' Randy & Tammy, for a week or so, then to Durango, CO to visit Rick & Patti from the Baja trip, and Joe Rooyakkers is coming to meet us there for the weekend, then to San Acacia, NM to see our rancher friends, Steve & Raylene for a couple days, then toward the Keys:)  We plan to be there mid November or so.  It sounds like they haven't been hit by hurricanes too badly this year...hopefully that good fortune continues.