Earthships...they're not ships.

Sorry for the delay again; been really busy in Las Vegas at our new receptionist jobs...but that's a different post.

Basically, an Earthship is a solar powered house that is totally self-sustaining...if Bear Grylls was a house, he'd be an Earthship. So D.K. had found a blog about visionary Americans and came across Dan Richfield: A Brooklynite so inspired by the Earthship movement he moved out to Taos, New Mexico to see how it was done and build his own Earthship...which is where we come in. He was taking volunteers to camp out on the site and just help out with the build during the day.

We met/met up with some really good folk while in Taos. There was Brad: a Canadian hitchhiking across the west on his way back home. He was studying environmental science so the earthship scene was pretty ideal for him. Dk's friend from college, Mia, was also meeting us in Taos.

A lot of the work we involved "pounding tires." Basically, you pour a crazy amount of dirt in the dire, compact it to the sides with rocks using a sledgehammer, and line them up next to each other. Sounds like b-word work but the tires are pretty much the bricks of the house, so yeah.

We got to use power tools which was awesome and ended each day by going down to the Rio Grand river and soaking in the hot springs there. Being exhausted is a good feeling; it distracts you from the prospect of black widows crawling in your tent.

 So that was two weeks. We found a cool website called that listed jobs which paid you in room and board. We got accepted for receptionist jobs in Las Vegas. Kind of straying from the manual labor path we were on but we were ready for a break and the idea of screaming "Vegas!!" every two seconds on the car ride over there.

We'll see...

Banga-rang...the gripping conclusion and Fanta Se (Santa Fe)

Soooooooo sorry for the delay...It's been a busy past few weeks but a lot has happened which your about to find out about riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight...NOW!

We ended are stay on (Farmer) Dave's farm in great fashion: It was his birthday the day before we left so we got to see all of the friends we made in Mancos all together and party with them one last time. The party was great. (Farmer) Dave made pizza's in his brick oven with crazy fresh ingredients. The night ended with everyone gathered by the fire while a drum circle raged on...until the cops shut the party down. We'd be more upset about that if they weren't the nicest cops ever (they were literally playing with the dogs after they told us to put out the fire). Packed up our stuff the next morning, said goodbye to everyone and head south to Santa Fe. Def gunna miss the people in Mancos but we were both ready to move on.

Get to Santa Fe mid-afternoon where we were staying two nights with Joel, our couch surfing host. Joel was a year older than us and had just finished his first year as a music teacher at a middle school not too far from Santa Fe. One thing that's hard to miss about Santa Fe, let alone all of New Mexico, is the Adobe architecture; even the Wal-Mart was adobe which pissed us off for some reason. Walked around Santa Fe for a while and determined that the most interesting thing about it were the unusually high curbs...I'm talkin' ankle-twisting high. Joel put it best: Santa Fe was just a big Adobe playground for adult tourists to stop by and buy Native American jugs.

The second day ended up being an importand day for DK and I: We had made popsicles to sell on the plaza and DK was going to play his djembe for money. Well, we made one pity-dollar before a bike-cop told us we needed a license to play on the street. However, we did sell 3 popsicles (3 bucks total) before they got all melty and I (Goodman) sat on the curb and scooped melted popsicle into my mouth (not my finest moment). We also had dinner that night with Joel and his friends a.k.a. the only twenty-somethings in Santa Fe. We got kinda drunk and DK and I performed our first karaoke song as a duet: "My Girl" by The Temptations (serious shout out to the BHEC people).

Had really nice conversations with Joel throughout our time in Santa Fe. It was interesting hearing a recent graduate reflect on his decisions to get a job right out of school; and also, hearing his opinions on the state of public schools and his mixed feelings about working at one...so big shout out to Joel for letting us stay at your place and giving us some good conversation topics on our way to Taos where the Earthships await.

What's an Earthship you ask? You could be a normal human and just Google it...or...read our next blog post where we'll probably refer you to Google

Until then...

Banga-rang...pt.3

So we get the directions to Boomtown via a phone number that goes straight to voicemail and gives the directions in the voicemail. We knew we were in for an interesting night when the message instructed us not to tell the cops where we were going if we get pulled over.

We finally get there after a few wrong turns and backtracking at 15 mph over rocky, dirt roads. Dubstep and electronica (I don't like that word for some reason) are the primary genre's of music being played and people were definitely going nuts over it. We ended up parking next to (Farmer) Dave's car coincidentally and most of the night wasn't speant dancing with the 17 year olds but rather just talking and drinking with Dave and Mave (Mave came with Dave). Speaking of names that rhyme, two girls randomly popped by our cars and asked us our names and we got to say "Dave, Dave, and Mave"...I don't think that'll ever happen again...shame. 

We passed out pretty early that night but woke up to some pretty memorable events. One girl had taken too much Ecstasy and thought she would drown if she drank any water. Fortunately, D.K. went over there and talked her down and she was ok after a little bit. We fall back asleep and awake again to a huge brawl thats going on by the cars across from ours. We get the full story the next morning and find out that one of the kids basically got his face broken and the people that told us that had to walk him out of the concert vicinity so the ambulance and police wouldn't break up the party. Really cool of those guys. 

We left that morning with Kayla on our way to Piedra hot springs. We were excited for these particular springs because apparently they are local springs that not many know about. On our way there we dropped off a kid in Durango who had been ditched by his friends at Boomtown. 

It took about half an hour to walk down the trail to the hot springs but it was so worth it. It's basically just a bunch of small pools next to a river and the mineral's [insert scientific explanation], creating hot water. Our first experience with nudist anything and itw as easy to not make a big deal about it. Morality and opinions on the way life should be lived are way different out west and we're starting to see how differently people live and can still be happy...

Banga-rang...pt.2

We wake up bright and early and have no idea what to expect. We started off by weeding the greenhouse...it's really hot in there. Then we put the tomato's back in their cages which was way easier than weeding but would have been even better if it wasn't in the greenhouse. Found out that the big difference between organic and modern farming is just the use of pesticides and weed killers. A large part of our days will be spent hand picking the crops and weeding the fields just so (Farmer) Dave can put out organic produce.

One cool part about the day is lunch. Dave usually just picks a few veggies right out of the field and puts it over rice and salad. Being an organic farmer, he has a choice selection of dressings and herbs that were pretty foreign to us...pretty soon we began making a list of what dressings he buys...Aminos Soy Sauce Substitute has really changed our lives.

On Mondays, Thursdays, and Fridays Dave has his hired help come by and help with the harvest. They're all mad cool people: Kayla, studied culinary anthropology in college and is traveling all over the place discovering the culture of food, Cody, a.k.a. D.J. Smiley Coyote whose music keeps us going as we weed/harvest the fields, and Leighanne, prototypical hippie but very knowledgeable about all things politics (with her daughter, Kiva, by her side). With all of us working together the time and tasks seem to fly by; sometimes it gets so crowded that Dave sends us to Miles and Mave's farm next door (which we have no problem doing).

That Friday Cody tells us about some underground rave/party thing called "Boomtown" which he'll be DJing at. Kayla then offers to take us to the hot springs nearby after the rave which me and DK have been wanting to do for a while. This all shaped us to be a pretty solid weekend and can't wait to let you know how it goes...

Banga-rang...pt.1

So now it's just me and DK on our way to Mancos, Co where we're about to spend the next weekish WWOOFing on this guy Dave Banga's farm. The seven hour drive down there was pretty awesome as we were taking I-295 South down there. If any of you find yourselves in a similar area/situation, try and take this road whenever possible. There were so many great/diverse views of the mountains it was unbelievable; I (Goodman) was afraid at times of crashing because of how distractingly beautiful the scenery was.

That was cool and by this time we were about 60 miles outside of Mancos. Prior to the trip, we had discussed what we would do in the case of seeing a hitchhiker; long story short we both agreed to pick 'em up. Now, the time in between seeing Ben (as he would later introduce himself) and cruising with him in the back seat goes a lot faster than you would think. All the sudden, we had this guy in the backseat of the car and within about 12 seconds we really didn't want him there anymore.

Ben told us about his life 30+ year career as a hitchhiker/ traveler and even some of the stories he had along the way (he even told us about the meth he had smoked the night before!). Despite how horrifyingly uncomfortable Ben made us, he actually turned out to be a pretty good tour guide on our way to Mancos. He told us a lot of un-touristy places to check out and places he thought were overrated. He knew every turn like the back of his hand and his non-stop talking allowed us to think less  about the prospect of being murdered.

His final words to us before we dropped him off came in the form of a question. He asked us how fast the speed of light was and how far the earth was from the sun. We didn't know the answers but neither did Ben, so no big there. That was that, Ben was out of our lives (hopefully) and DK and I learned our lesson about picking up hitchhikers.

We get to Banga's Farm: about ten acre's of land with 7 or 8 fields, Dave's trailer that he slept in, shaded work station, and newly planted orchard in the back. Dave's a really cool guy right off the bat. He tells us that we're going to be doing a lot of harvesting, weeding, watering, and all the other stuff that goes along with organic farming. The toilet is a compost toilet which I (Goodman) thought would suck but actually turned out being pretty cool (you get to put sawdust on the doodie). His friend a neighbor came over for dinner, Mave, who is an absolutely awesome person; definitely marriage material for both of us if she wasn't already married to Miles, who we met later, and not surprisingly, was also marriage material.

The real work started the next morning and between the 8 hour drive and 60 miles with Ben the Hitchhiker, we were ready for the day to be over...

Bo(u)ld(er) as Love...Part 2

We wake up the next morning determined to hike up the mountain that is right behind our house. I forget the name of it, but it's a freaking mountain. The views were stunning while wheezing our way to the top but we were determined to beat the 5 year old girls that were right on our tails (we beat them in the end). We get to the top and of course its an incredible view of Boulder. Going down was a tricky situation; Dk's mountain climbing prowess basically allowed him to do cartwheels down the mountain while I (Goodman) pretty much crab walked the whole way.

The rest of the day was pretty much the same as previous day: people watching and buying food we didn't need. That evening though opened up a lot of doors for us. A guy named Tripp sat down next to us with his dinner and we started up a conversation. We told him our story and he offered us a place to stay for the Fourth of July which was awesome because we felt bad asking Dan and everyone if we could keep staying for one extra night.

It's the Fourth of July and we sleep through whatever parade there was going to be in downtown Boulder. We leave Dan's place and head over to Tripp's where he meets us briefly and than takes a nap two minutes later. We're left with Leyton, their new roommate from Mississippi who's been there for about a week. We all   hit it off with Leyton immediately. It was a really hot day so we all, including Leyton, decide to go to the resevoir nearby. We get there and it says "No Trespassing." Fortunately for us, Leyton was drunk and had no problem hopping the fence (DK drove his car over so we were all pretty much forced to follow, but it turned out not being a big deal at all). The water felt great on such a hot day and we swam around for about 45 minutes.

Back at the house we started grilling and drinking a bit to celebrate the Fourth. Leyton started to tell us about his life as a drug dealer back in Mississippi. Apparently he had connections that allowed him to import pills from India and when that wasn't enough, he would drive 34 hours non-stop to California to pick up a pound of weed (I couldn't make this up if I tried). He was awesome to hang out with nonetheless and he introduced to one of the other roommates named Geo. Geo was 19 and spent the past few years hopping trains and getting his on-and-off-again girlfriend pregnant (at that time they were off, and he was telling us about the child support he was going to pay her).

A bunch more people here and there but no one as interesting or exciting as Geo and Leyton. Dk and I had to wake up early the next morning to drive 7 hours to Mancos, CO to start our WWOOFing commitment on "Banga's Farm." That morning was so hectic just throwing things in the car and scrounging around blindly for my contact case. I also had a bloody nose which wasn't helping matters. We got everything settled and jumped on the Aussie's to say goodbye. We definitely were gunna miss those guys. They planned on hitch hiking up to Yellowstone so the fact we were going in opposite directions meant not even a lift to the major roads. It was a quick and painless goodbye; def gunna keep in touch with those two.

That was that, now on to Mancos...

Bo(u)ld(er) as Love...Part 1

So me, DK, and the Aussie's leave Abigail's the next morning for Boulder, CO...the first place we actually got to hang out. We heard good things about Boulder but at that time, we were just excited to see some mountains (or anything besides corn).

We got to our new couch surfing spot where our hosts were Dan, Rick, Katelyn, and Christina (with occasional cameo's by Pat, the "other roommate"). They were all couples and a couple of years older than us. We found it interesting how they all managed to share a condo in downtown Boulder when only one of them had a job.

They set us up in the bedless/furnitureless basement so we had to use on our sleeping bags which was totally fine. Walking downtown was easy because they were only 8 or 9 blocks away from Pearl Street Mall, an outdoor mall that is absolutely awesome. That evening we had dinner with the Aussies and planned to meet up with our host’s afterwards. By this point we were really good friends with Nick and Josh (the Aussies) and the fact that we were parting ways after Boulder lingered in our minds.

We met our hosts at some cellar bar and lost track of them pretty soon after; the rest of the night is really just a blur. Oh! We did hide our leftovers behind a garbage can so we could bring them back to the house later which did come in handy but yeah, that’s about it.

The next day however gave us a real sense of the city. We spent most of the day on the mall just window shopping and people watching. From our observation, Boulder is split into four different categories of people: The young couples, who are incredibly well dressed and happy and have children named either Graham or Jackson. Then there’s the college students, who will likely join the young couples in due time. There’s also the street performers, there are so many of them that they deserve representation in Boulder’s demographic. Acts range from fire-jugglers to contortionists to hippies with guitars, which brings us to the final category…hippies. Well, hippies can be broken up into two sub-categories: classic hippies and sketchy hippies. Classic hippies are your typical hippies, but the sketchy hippies are the ones that usually only come out at night. They usually have face/neck tattoos and carry signs like “sparijuana” and “full of love, out of weed.” They seemed to really like our hacky sack but we had to put it away when we found out there was a $250 fine because it was a “flying projectile” or something.

So those were the first two days in Boulder. We only planned to stay for a that amount of time but we really liked the place and hadn’t even gone hiking in the Rockies yet so we had some unfinished business to take care of…