Heading Towards Canyonlands

On our relatively brief swing through New Mexico we now turn the front of the car north and head to Taos, a smallish town with as usual an overabundance of ‘art’ shops.  A little outside of town lies a community called ‘Earthships’, where all the buildings are self sufficient for power, water and a reasonable amount of food.  The buildings have very thick walls made up of old tyres (for stability) filled with rammed earth which are then covered in mud.  The buildings are aligned to catch the sun so north sides have soil backed against them and southern sides are glass.  The heavy walls soak up heat which then escapes slowly when the outside temperature drops.  Even in winter when the desert around has snow, there’s enough warmth to keep the buildings warm.  When it is hot, natural convection through the buildings acts like air conditioning.  It was very hot when we were there but very comfortable inside.  Rainwater is collected in 10,000 gallon tanks and is recycled, with washing machine and shower water being filtered and used to flush lavatories and water all the plants growing just inside the south facing glass.  The relatively simple technology is fine and the concept is fine but the buildings themselves all look a bit ramshackle when they really don’t need to.  It doesn’t help that they are in the desert and there’s nothing green on the outside, just dust and a few sparse desert plants.  Very interesting though and well worth seeing.

Even the local radio station has taken the off-grid stuff to heart, claiming to be the only completely solar-powered radio station in the world.

Our hotel in Taos was as different from the standard ‘could be anywhere’ motels as you could imagine.  It was two old houses knocked into one with a rabbit warren of rooms and a tight spiral staircase up to our very comfortable suite.  Everything was covered in ‘folk-art’.  The kitchen cupboard doors all had paintings on them, there were bright colours everywhere and the walls were covered in paintings.  It all had a very central American feel to it.  The owner, clearly of Hispanic type heritage was about 5 feet 3inches tall which explained the heights of some of the fittings and beams.  It was a delightful place to stay, with a crackingly good breakfast.  At our last breakfast here we got talking to a very interesting woman who turned out to be the curator of the MIT Science Museum in Boston.  We found out later that they have a huge collection of slide-rules, something I never got to grips with, being limited at school to only simple sums.

We took another scenic drive and a hike into the mountains a little further north from Taos rising to about 10,000 feet where it was noticeably and welcomingly cooler.  At these higher altitudes the Aspens had taken on full leaf-peeper autumn colours, ranging from bright yellow towards a light orange.  Growing as they do amongst conifers, a glance across a valley had what seemed to be blazes of colour set among the more sombre tones of the conifer foliage.  Close up the Aspen trunks are white, very much like Silver Birch and even the trunks seem to glow in the strong sunshine.

We now had a couple of long driving days because we’re headed for the iconic Monument Valley, as seen in all those old cowboy films.  On the way we pass Four Corners, where four different states (Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah) join at one a point of four 90 degree angles because someone with a ruler just drew ‘em that way.

Our first destination in Utah is Monument Valley which was just as expected which was the problem really.  It was wonderful to see but it looked familiar because I’d seen so many pictures of it and it wasn’t fresh like so many new sights are.  However, the huge Mesas rising from the desert floor were majestic, dropped across a large expanse of desert, much of which is inaccessible, being on injun land.  We stayed here until nearly sunset just to see the rosy light and the shadows creeping across the desert.

I know the Indians/Native Americans were treated abysmally, cheated and killed off in genocidal proportions but their idea of getting their own back seems to be to rip off tourists wherever possible.  In Taos, to go into a pueblo village outside of town was $16 each, it’s a village of mud huts.  Come on, I live in Milton Abbas, a village of mud huts.  At Four Corners it was $5 each to see a sign which said Four Corners.  We saw a number of people drive in and then turn around at the ticket office and drive away.  In Monument Valley it was $20 a car to visit the Visitor centre.  For missing these three exciting opportunities we saved ourselves $62.  Incidentally the Indian/Native American bit is confusing.  Indian is used a lot in ‘Indian Tribal Lands’ and ‘Indian Reserve’, and this is on their land so if they wanted to call it Native American they could.  So is it that it’s acceptable for say the Apache or Navajo to call themselves Indians but not us.  Verdict on Monument Valley – got to be seen if you get the chance.

Leaving our hotel in Mexican Hat, a town named after a rock stack outside town which, you guessed, is shaped like a Mexican Hat, we drive north along yet another spectacular road to Blanding which I have to say matches it’s name precisely.  Our plan is to travel along a scenic drive from here running westward for about 125 miles with no towns or villages of any description (ghost or otherwise) on it,  to a town enjoying the most American name of a town I have ever heard, Hanksville.  We fill up with fuel, having already learned that lesson.

As you will know we’ve driven a lot of scenic routes but this one was very special, distant vistas, ridiculously weather-sculpted rusty terracotta coloured rock, desert landscapes and a deep, deep blue sky with just enough fluffy white cloud to set it all off a treat.  I had a severe attack of a complaint unknown to medical science but which I call Photographic Diarrhoea.  We were a bit sated by this time with just too much visual stimulation so when we drove past another sign which said ‘Scenic Route’, there was a spontaneous groan of “Oh, no” from both of us.