New Years 2025 in New Mexico

Jean and I spent the first several days of the New Year in New Mexico. We set off on our trip earlyish New Years Eve morning. Jean is currently training for the Austin Marathon (happening in February) and has grown a lot stronger in the past couple of months reaching a point to where she actually enjoys running. It's a crazy world. Enroute she suggested we stop in San Angelo where it looked like there was a nice path along the Concho river. Jean did a 4 mile run while I had a burger at a brewery on the river front.

Our eventual goal was Taos but we stayed the first night (New Years Eve) in Roswell, New Mexico at a Best Western. There we met up with with our friends/neighbors Hunter and Mandi who we would be sharing the Taos accommodation with.

On the road to Taos

The next day we took the winding highway 518 through the mountains into Taos arriving at midday. We couldn’t check in until 4 pm so Jean and I went hiking while Hunter and Mandi found a place to watch the Texas/Arizona State Game.

On the trail on our first day in Taos

Taos in the distance

Our car is parked about a thousand feet down by the road

Our accommodation in Taos was an Earthship which was especially exciting for me because while I’ve toured(mostly virtually but some in person) dozens of Earthships I’ve never stayed in one. This was an early generation model. The owner of the property (not the builder) thought the structure was built in the 1970s or early 1980s which predates the first “official” Earthship built in the mid 1980s.

Our Earthship Lodging

The place we were staying was built into a hillside and had extensive southwest facing glazing. The back wall retaining was might have been built using tires but it was impossible to tell. Where modern Earthships are off grid using solar panels to generate electricity and rain water collection for the water supply this place was tied into the electric grid and had a well.

Modern earth ships also recycle gray water to irrigate an indoor garden space and supply water for flushing the toilet(s). All the waste water for this structure went directly to a conventional septic system. Finally, while modern earth ships require little if any heating due to thermal mass, passive solar design, good insulation and air sealing this model did pretty well with passive solar and the thermal mass but not so well with the insulation and air sealing.

It had two potbelly wood stoves that we kept going during the day that could get the downstairs to a very comfortable 70°F. Overnight, the inside inside temperatures would drop to the low 50s/high 40s.

All that being said, the place was awesome. You could tell that someone had built it with a vision and passion. The current owner who gave us an orientation the first day really seemed to love it as well and be really happy to be able to share the space with others (I’m sure the rental income is nice too). There was quirky art integrated everywhere. For me it was a lot of fun to study the historical construction and design choices that would eventually lead to modern Earthships.

One of the funny design choices was that the place was ultra open plan. The only somewhat effective internal door was the one to the bathroom. We had a door to our bedroom but our bedroom had a huge vaulted opening overlooking the living area. The living area was only 6 feet below our bedroom so you could see right into our bedroom from the couch. So, to change, Jean and I lie on the floor behind the parapet and wriggle in and out of our clothing.

Our cave themed bedroom

Our beautiful bedroom door

And this huge opening overlooking the living room and the parapet we changed clothes behind

Anyway, I could probably write pages and pages about Earthships and natural building. The property was in the Carson National forest. Jean found an out and back trail into the mountains that we could access on foot from the house. This trail climbed about 2000 feet over 4 to 5 miles. On another day we hiked at the Rio Grande Gorge and then took a tour at the Earthship Biotecture.

An indistinct trail

We found quite a bit of snow a higher elevations

Bundled up in the late afternoon

Hiking at Rio Grande Gorge

Bridge over the gorge

At the Earthship Biotecture

Is it geeky to wear your Earthship T-shirt to the Earthship Biotecture?

Our tour guide took us to the top of this structure which wasn't on the tour last time.

Some really good views of the Earthship community

In the evenings and some morning we played Sleeping Gods which is a cooperative exploration and survival game. Set in 1929 we took on the roles of the crew and passengers of the steam ship Manticore which is mysteriously transported from New York harbor to a strange world. We had to sail the Wandering Seas battling monsters and meeting the denizens of the world while trying to find a way home and keep our ship afloat and everyone on board alive.

Sleeping Gods is also an atlas game. Each page represents a small portion of the Wandering Seas. We kept track of the Manticore’s location on the map and when we sailed off the edge of the page we flipped the atlas to the new area and continued our journey.

Further, Sleeping Gods is a storybook game which is akin to a Choose Your Own Adventure book albeit on on steroids. The 172 page story book provides narrative elements and branching decision choices for the multitude of locations in the world. Hunter expertly provided most of the narration giving voices to small children, blubbering fish people, withered old crones, displaced New York wise guys and the occasional denizen with a bizarre Scottish/Australian/Indian accent.

A campaign of the game is meant to be played over several sessions. Instead of packing of the game between sessions we left it out for most of our time in Taos. We probably played about 15 hours over the course of three days and managed to escape to New York at 11 pm on our last night in the Earthship. The game has 13 different ending and I’d say we only visited about 10% of the locations in the world so there’s lots of replayability.

The story, game play and character development were all great. I was really liked my character, Marco. Marco started out the lowly ship’s cook who started our armed with only a frying pan but by end of the campaign had become a cunning warrior-chef wielding a titan’s hammer and the ability to whip up a delectable and restorative stew from scratch. My second character on the other hand, the doctor, Gregory, came off as being a little pompous in the narrative and spent most the game poisoned and/or weakened and/or unconscious and/or near death and/or cowering in fear at the mere thought of engaging in combat with one of the many monsters lurking around the Wandering Seas.

Diesel completely uninterested in the trials and travails of the crew of the Manticore

Josh and Julie at our wedding

Anyway, I could probably write pages and pages about the exploits and misadventures of the crew of the Manticore (e.g. Why are we helping this old curmudgeon replace the roof of his hovel?). On Saturday morning Hunter and Mandi headed back to Texas and Jean and I went on to Santa Fe to meet up with Julie and Josh. Julie and Josh are old friends of ours from our time in the Church singles department. You might recognize them from some of our wedding photos. They’ve been living in Santa Fe for over a decade now but we manage to meet up every few years or so.

We hiked around some trails in their neighborhood and played some board games. I suggested getting out Sleeping Gods and playing until we had to leave at 7 am the next morning but we wisely decided to play some shorter games (The Gang, Vikings and Small World) and turned in at 11 pm. We rolled out of Santa Fe at 8 am the next morning and made the 700 mile trip home in about 12 hours.