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...