I came to Taos yesterday, driving straight to Kit Carson Park in the middle of town so I could relax after the hour-and-a-half trip from Santa Fe—and more important, find a bathroom.
After drinking two Cokes on the drive up, I was near bursting.
Scout tried to drag me around the park, looking for some relief of her own, but I told her, “Sorry, kid, it’s my turn first,” and I dragged her instead.
An adobe building with signs that said, “Men” and “Women,” was locked. Thanks a lot, Taos.
Then I spotted a less permanent-looking, small wooden building near some bleachers and a playing field. It sported a blue-and-white sign with the familiar wheelchair symbol and the word, “Disabled”. Did that mean only disabled people could use it? Too bad.
“I’m 72 and have given birth twice,” I exaggerated in my mind as I race-walked across the grass, pulling on Scout’s leash and practicing my speech in case anyone objected. I won’t really be 72 for another three months and the last birth was a C-section, but screw it. This was an emergency. Every mother knows what I’m talking about.
No one objected. No one was even there.
The vault toilet hadn’t been cleaned in a while but I didn’t care. Scout seemed positively thrilled, sniffing around the base of the unit, which appeared rife with olfactory enrichment.
“GET OUT OF MY WAY,” I shrieked, rudely shoving her and pulling down my pants in one motion, not even trying to avoid letting them touch the filthy floor. I didn’t care.
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
It was only then that I thought to check if there was any toilet paper. There was. What luck!
Taos wasn’t in the plans for another week, but while I was parked at a Santa Fe Walmart yesterday morning, my feet itched. I wanted to be on the move again.
I had a quarter-tank of gas and plenty of food in the van. There was $40 in the bank and $25 in my wallet. I counted up my laundry quarters and hoarded change: almost $16. I looked at my new Thermos food jar that I had bought in a fit of sustainable cooking, and decided I didn’t need it that much. I returned it and got back $21. All in all, the $102 total was enough to get me to Taos and cover extras until my Social Security check would arrive in six days.
Decision made
I used an app called Gas Buddy to find the cheapest station in the vicinity, put ten gallons in the tank, splurged on two Cokes and a box of Nutty Buddy’s for the trip, and headed out.
My friends in Taos, Wendy and Jeremy, had long ago invited me to stay on their rented land but they were now back home in Ohio, purging their storage unit while Wendy’s mom, Sandi, flew out to care of their two dogs, a Lab mix named Crosby and 16-year-old Dakota. I wanted to meet Sandi before they got home and she returned to her place in Ohio.
A few years before, Wendy and Jeremy had bought a school bus and come out West, which was how I met them at the Rubber Tramp Rendezvous in Quartzite, AZ.
Scout had a reputation as the camp thief wherever we went, so naturally, she helped herself to Crosby’s toy bone. When I returned it, Wendy’s easy forgiveness and Jeremy’s ebullient smile made me want to know them better. Seeing their hippie bus, even more so.
After RTR, we all went our separate ways, keeping track of each other’s travels via Facebook. Wendy and Jeremy eventually landed in Taos, got jobs and rented a tiny, one-room house on a two-acre plot while they waited for their house to sell in Ohio.
But let me tell you about Taos
It is a place like no other, and I am smitten. The town itself is an art colony, crammed with studios and funky little adobe shops, nearly seven thousand feet high at the foot of the towering Sangré de Cristo mountains. (That’s Blood of Christ in Spanish, btw.) This has been the home of the Taos Indians for a thousand years or more. The nearby Taos Pueblo is the oldest continuously inhabited community in the U.S. (See? I do my research.)
I had wanted to come to Taos ever since I first read about it in Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones and later, in Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way (affiliate link). Georgia O’Keeffe’s Ghost Ranch is nearby. There must be something magical about Taos to attract so many creative geniuses.
But what is truly unique about this place is its sheer funkiness. I’m staying on the outskirts of town in what must be an unincorporated area. There couldn’t be any zoning regulations at all here. How else to explain the bizarre conglomeration of living arrangements?
My hosts’ bathroom is an outhouse. Their rented ‘house’ is a one-room adobe shack with a covered patio, their converted school bus acting as a guest room. Scout and I are camped in the van a few yards away. Around us, scattered among the sagebrush, are all manner of dwellings: buses, trailers, RVs, Earthships, a homemade ‘castle’, even a pyramid. Oh, and a few so-called ‘normal’ houses.
Nobody seems to care—or notice—that I am openly living in my van. Everyone seems to respect everyone else’s space and privacy.
That, and the clean air and wide open sky, is what I love about Taos.
And the art colony. And the pueblo. I plan to explore them soon.
