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...
Saturday, August 27, 2011
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
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...
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...
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