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- My Aunt Elida’s home in Taos
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- The view from the house
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- Chamyo and Elida
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- An old, historic adobe church
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- Earth + hay x weather= old adobe
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- Uncle Alfie cuttin’ a rug
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- New Mexico architecture
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- An Earth Ship in the form of a pyramid
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- Our “thank you” meal of curry, falafel and salad for our hosts
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- The old Hog Farm bus in Llano
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- Djuna and Natalie checkin it out
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- It’s casual
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- Djuna’s awesome house
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- handsome Herman
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- ferocious Frida in the Tuna
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- Our dashboard dancer
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- Penasco traffic jam
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- Moooove over…
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- The cherry on top of a wonderful Easter Sunday
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- Hub cap of hippies
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- Another old truck
We’ve made our way through the windy plains and into the beautiful state of New Mexico. The last three days we spent in the Taos area where we stayed with my Aunt Elida, my father Alton’s sister, and my uncle Alfie in their enchanting adobe house. We had our own guest room with a splendid view of the Taos valley and had the company or their small black and white cat, Chamyo.
Elida and Alfie spent two days showing us around the area, which was a nice change from our wandering techniques. We drove up into the snowy mountains to see the ski lodge and the amazing aspen forests; out along the plateau to see the Earth Ships, houses made with recycled materials and adobe half buried in the earth; over the deep, majestic Rio Grande Gorge and all around the old parts of Taos where historical plaques decorate the ancient but well-kept adobe homes and hotels.
Many passionate discussions and tasty smells of curry and morning coffee filled my Aunts house while we stayed there, all enjoyable and informative. Many tears of joy were also shed. It was more than special to spend time with members of my family that I rarely see. Plus, we got to meet some truly lovely friends of theirs that sweetened the experience making it, on the whole, a cake, frosted and served with ice cream!
After two days and two nights spent with them, Easter Sunday we loaded our stuff back into the Tuna, said a teary goodbye and headed to Penasco, a short 45 minute drive south of Taos to the home of our Hog Farm sister Djuna. She and her boyfriend Ken live in the coolest house; an old general store made of grey wood and adobe. The front room is huge, where the store part was, and the back holds many spacious and magical rooms. They also have two of the cutest dogs, Frida and Herman. Frida is a Pug and Herman some type of wiry haired terrier that I mostly wanted to abscond.
We had a quick tour of their awesome house and then we all loaded up in the Tuna and headed up to Djuna’s moms (Oxygen) house in Llano, an area near Penasco, right next door to where the old Hog Farm property was for a tasty Easter lunch. Oxygen’s house is really cool; it’s an old adobe with curved walls and warm, close rooms full of art. We had a great lunch and then got to check out the old bus that used to be in the Hog Farm property next door, as well as Oxygen’s amazing collection of costumes and clothes stored in the sweetest work space that resembled a small airline hanger. After we poked around a bit more we headed back to Djuna’s house and then out for a nice post-lunch walk in the mountains.
Natalie and I have been so overwhelmed by the kindness, genuine love, and genuine interest people have shown us on our trip. Being welcomed into homes with open arms where every thing we might want our need is given to us; having such love and support poured over us by our friends, family and even the strangers and new friends we have met; receiving endless amounts of encouragement that fills us to the brim, spilling out in the form of tears when we are over joyed by the love of everyone we come in contact with. We have literally been celebrated in every way and in every place we have been as if we were heroes in a parade, bannered and sprinkled with confetti and cheers.
So thank you everyone that has given us this unimaginable energy, this love as big as the state of Texas and a whole lot more interesting than that big windy state! I have only my limited vocabulary to express our thanks and appreciation, but words cannot describe the way we are filled with a golden light that spills out of us and back into this crazy world we live in.
After our scrumshus meal and short but poignant visit with Djuna we once more hit the road, following Djuna’s excellent directions, down the mountains and through the exquisite valleys of New Mexico to the outskirts of Albuquerque where we spent the night in a hotel parking lot full of the cutest brush bunnies. I mean the freakin cutest little things you’ve ever seen! I saw one this morning that was, and I am not exaggerating, the size of a softball…dang, it wouldn’t let me pick it up.
We’re headed toward Arizona and the Grand Canyon in the next few days, and then on to Indio, CA. where we will be working for Biasha at a few festivals. Money! We need it!
Until my next post, hogs and loves!
