Dirt and sagebrush

I just found the following blog hanging out in the draft section----guess I never put it out there, so I thought it was good enough to share our new home in Taos.
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 April 2018
A new chapter in the life of Reeves has begun, and I have to---no, I NEED to write it down in satirical fashion with as much humor squeezed out of the budding fruit as possible, or I'll be chasing after little anti-anxiety pills of which I can't pronounce.

After four years of floating around the country in a 19ft mechanical camper van and then transitioning to a salty fiberglass hull adorned with teak and Dacron, we sold Fiesta in Nov 2017 and finally bought dirt.  I kinda feel like we "bought the farm" instead.  It was NOT an easy decision, as there really weren't too many choices that filled our criteria for where we want to spend the next few years of our lives. 

Adios Fiesta 💙

                        Dirt and Sagebrush

In search of water---fresh water 

That's the title of this next long chapter/phase of Reeves on the Run; however, it should be retitled Reeves on the Mesa.  Yep.  We bought 2.25 acres of dirt and sagebrush on a dirt road called Eototo. We were soon to become Eototians---kinda cosmic in a Twilight Zone sorta way. Read on.

Taos is a vortex.  What is a vortex?  A space that sucks you in----for better or for worse.  It feels involuntary, but actually you are free to leave at any time.  Around here, they say if "the scared mountain" wants you here, she'll take you in.  If not, she'll spit you out.  I kind of think of the mountain as the old woman who lived in a shoe----she had so many children, she didn't know what to do. I forget how the rest of it goes, but the point is, she takes care of us, but not without a spanking now and then.  We still come back, because she loves and nurtures us.

Back to the dirt story, but let's make it a long story in a nutshell.  When the boat sold, we went after this piece of soft sage dirt with 360 big sky views.  What should have been a slam-dunk good deal turned into a clouded title with four months of waiting.  But I want to save my humor, so we'll cut to March 30, 2018 and the signing of the title and celebration with Krista coming into town from Boulder for her 25th birthday.

More skipped steps in the story: now we have the Reeves paired up with a long-time Taoseño adobe builder staking the property with our new house plans (hopefully with the neighbors more curious than groaning).  I question my sanity at this point.  What have we done?????  Is this what I really want????  Oh, mother mountain, help me.

The driveway was as long as a football field for the sake of efficiently running utilities to the "divine perfect spot", and I'm daunted by the Hail Mary pass I'm gonna have to make.  It took way more pesos than we planned, of course. Thoughts of grabbing the ball in a quarterback sneak and hauling ass the other way outta town ran through my head.  But all my team stared at me with a wtf.  So I gulped my indecision of commitment down the gullet and threw the cost of this project down the long driveway to Ramon, the excavator.  RUN RAMON RUN---before I change my mind, which I knew would be a personal four-month challenge to build this mud house.  But in the long run, it was what we wanted and we committed to sailing on a sea of sagebrush for now.  See Tim's video: Adobe Home Construction

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Local Taos mud used for adobe bricks

Looks like we have a porta-potty with a great view
(or vice-versa :)

Living room vigas (vee-guz) pointing the way

Leslie's wood carving for window frame pieces

Hand carved beam

Home 

The mountain and us

Depths of winter in Taos

Meet....
Frick and Frack...or....Yin and Yang.....or....Heckel and Jeckel. Their names are actually Jack and Lily--brother and sister.  One of our big (and hairy) responsibilities while house-sitting here in Taos, NM.  They are two of the most lovable cats I've ever met. 
There's never enough lap-time for their liking and Lily will often take the shoulders when there is no lap.  Black clothing becomes hairy-white and white clothing becomes hairy-black.  Ya gotta love 'em; it's not a choice.

Frodo and Pippin--looking for the ring?

We left the boat (on the Florida brokerage dock) at sea level in mid-December and returned to the icy, snowy depths of Taos at 8000ft It was like Frodo crossing from his homeland in the Shire to Caradhras (snowy mountain pass of Lord of the Rings).  

We celebrated our first family Xmas together in two years with Krista in from Vermont. It snowed....and snowed....and then some more.

Orcs? or dwarves?

And we loved it. After all, this was home for 25 years. It made for lots of shoveling, but really awesome skiing.  And since we work up at the Taos Ski Valley---that white stuff is called job security.  It's the first time we had crossed over from recreational skiing to actually working on the mountain. We are part of the crew of 40 in the Guest Services department. We're the friendly greeters, ticket checkers and tour guides on the mountain.  We carry radios, so we can communicate around the mountain and/or call for ski patrol medical assistance as well.  It's actually a lot more skiing than we had originally thought.  We hit the floor running at 5:30am to commute 1/2 hour up the mountain and don't stop until we get back home around 6pm, dragging our butts, wiping out our footprints.  
Thank god for the star-lit hot tub here 😅





Ya gotta understand---we haven't worked for 2.5 years and now we're standing on our feet (or skiing) for nine hours a day (4 days/week) in the snow and cold temps for $10/hour.---yep, it's good to be humble.  (I can hear the groans coming off the Snook Bar at the marina).

1/30 of Taos Ski Valley

Malia hunting for dud bomb ~~~ 😟

We also get to work around Malia, our oldest daughter--28 yrs.  She is in her 3rd year on the ski patrol and one of three women out of 40 on patrol.  She loves her job, with avalanche bombing her personal fav.  On our mountain radios, we can hear patrol say,  "Fire in the hole!"  followed by a huge kaboom!!  One guest skier said to me, "Sounds like the boys are having fun," and I proudly say, "Yep, that was my daughter."

Avalanche rescue dogs, Hattie and June, ready for duty

Injury rescue out of big steep bump terrain--Malia on left

Leslie has tele-ski-luv :)  Free-heeling fun!!  

Three years ago, the Taos Ski Valley was bought by an environmentally minded billionaire (who also owns several islands in the Bahamas that we visited last winter on Fiesta), and he immediately added a new lift up to a previously 'hike-to-only' terrain called Kachina Peak.  It has added a lot more lift-service terrain to our backyard playground and we love it.

New Kachina Peak chairlift

Riding up to heaven...up to 12,481ft

Tim capturing Roswell-UFO cloud on video 

Dos Amigos

One of the best stories to come out of the season is a small-world tale. Part of our job is to scan lift tickets before skiers can take the chair lift up.  It's not one of our higher purposes in life, but it can be fun or monotonous.  One day, Tim was scanning a season pass card and the last name read Mutchler.  He asked the young woman if she knew of a Dwight Mutchler.  She pointed to the fatherly figure standing next to her. "Dwight!  It's Tim Reeves!!!"  Holy guacamole. These two had not seen or talked for over 40 years since they traveled together as young men in South America in the '70s. Dwight is where Tim had originally learned about skiing in Taos, NM.  Long-lost traveling friends reunited.  

Long lost friend found us again---JT!!

Throughout the last four months, we had old friends from the past drop back into our lives, as well as crazy nephews to remind us not to take it all too seriously. Thanks, guys, for three days of deep belly laughter----it will cure anything that ails. 

Loco relatives (nephews) to prove our own insanity....

Tim's trademark---who needs ski poles?

Tim's video production creativity has continued from the warm water world into our winter world.  Here's a link to his latest----an imagined perspective from Ernie Blake, the founder of the Taos Ski Valley, revisiting the massive changes to his beloved ski valley.  It's 4 1/2 min.

We have had so much snow that our season has been extended an extra week---closing date set at April 9th. One more week on the clock and then it's into our next phase... which is ???   We still don't know.  We're tired of worrying about it, so we will just take it as it comes.  Ya know, it just always seems to work out for us anyway.  After all, who needs ski poles?

So dear friends and family and lovable blog followers, hang in there with us as we continue our mid-life wandering and wondering. 

And remember...we're all here...cause....we're not all there.  Cheers!!

Little guys are baaaaack!!!

   

Paid to smile----and ski :)

Laundry day.....is this the north pole?

 

It's a new world....

And so the story begins again, after four months gone.

Me and "it's me Al"
Before we left Florida in early July, we rendezvoused one more time with my first college roommate, Alison, aka "it's me, Al!"  That was her nickname as college freshmen in 1977, and mine was...... "Wally."  Don't ask.

This is the last palm tree this car will ever see

What happens in Nawlins, stays in Nawlins....

 

We bought a 4-wheel drive car (in Florida--- hard to find actually) and then ventured for five days back across the southern US--via New Orleans,  to Dallas for a visit with relatives and old friends.

Big D....

More great old college buds @ the Burgins

Wyly laughter

And into the dusty plains of west Texas to visit Leslie's brother, Roger, fiancé Vicki, and son Dylan Wyly in Lubbock.

Housesitting jobs suck....wink*

Then it was on to the mountains of northern New Mexico, where we have a housesitting (and cat-sitting) job for some friends.  It was a beautiful summer at 8,000ft.  

Jack and Lily---double love & double hairy clothes

New Mexico sunsets forever in my heart

Over the four months, we worked a variety of odd jobs.  One memorable one was working security for a crowd of 7,000+ fans at an Alabama Shakes concert in our local park (7,000 people is larger than our town population).  

Fried Wyly girls---with niece Stacy :)

We also volunteered for another three-day music festival, and then we ventured to Santa Fe to help our niece and husband work their fried food wagon at the annual Renaissance Festival. Have you ever tried a Pickle Dog?  You should.  It's their personal savory invention and simply amazing.

Rusty and red leaves

"If I ain't happy here, I ain't happy nowhere..."

We were also hired to clean up and winterize several fall gardens. And what a beautiful fall it was.  We love the changing of the seasons and had missed this the last two years while down in Florida.  

While in Taos, Tim produced three more videos. All can be found on youtube.com—just search for TimReevesVideos or try this link:          https://www.youtube.com/user/TimReevesVideo

He currently has a total of 54 self-produced videos on his channel.  He wrote a song called "Taos Blue" and made this video (song is sung by our friends Ray and Cari of Strangebyrds):

Leslie pulled the beads and jewelry supplies out of storage and fired back up her Etsy shop—free shipping for the holidays!!!

This right-brain creativity is just what we needed to balance out the left-brain survival programming that a 35ft sailboat takes.  Balance is always good. 

I also took some of your encouraging comments to heart, and started writing a story.  Forever Blue is actually more like episodes, like an hour-long TV series.  I drew my ideas and inspiration from the many colorful, alternative-minded characters that populate Taos, NM—an unforgettable and quirky town.  I’ve thought about this written portrayal for years.  When I arrived back in town in July, I unleashed my satirical view of what Taos is like (in my mind anyway).  Quirky it is.  That’s why we all love Taos so much.  I’ve got two episodes written and mostly edited, with more coming.  I might let them go public… and then again, I might not. 

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Sea Monkeys to C-dock

Remember those ads about Sea-Monkeys all over comic books and MAD magazine?

"Own a bowlful of happiness---Instant Pets!"

"So eager to please.  They can even be trained"

"Always clowning around, these frolicsome pets swim, stunt and play games with each other."


Well, here's the fun fact truth about these critters (isn't google wonderful for explaining these childhood questions).

Frisky Sea Monkeys

They are actually brine shrimp.  That "frolicsome" activity is either the males fighting or a male/female having some "mommy & daddy" fun that can last for days.  Yep... days.  Males have beards; females do not. They don't have smiling human faces or cute little pot bellies. They don't even have crowns on their heads.  They are itty bitty shrimp. That's it.

They breathe through their feet and are born with one eye, but grow two more upon maturity.  The "train your pets" part is that they naturally gravitate towards your finger and/or a flashlight.  So, you're wondering what this all has to do with Tim and Leslie's great adventure?  

Another skunked metal detecting trip to the beach

We had arrived at the end of April back from the Bahamas to Boot Key Harbor, Marathon, Florida Keys.  It had gotten very....very....very warm the last two weeks, uncomfortably muggy and sticky.  Even a dinghy trip to the beach and a dip in the ocean was like bath water.  The sultry night air made for sweaty sleeping. Sweat and wet were the tropical look of the daily existence. 




After a month of sitting on a mooring ball in Boot Key Harbor, the growth on the bottom of the boat was ASTOUNDING; fuzzy, hairy things and small barnacles the size of thumbtacks. 

Typical Boot Key Harbor dinghy---our's wasn't this bad

In many cases, months of unchecked growth leads to very large, gnarly dreadlocked beards hanging underneath. Which actually resemble some of the salty-bearded boat owners of Boot Key Harbor life (love this laid-back harbor).  Anyway, two days before departing, we dove in the water with fins, mask and snorkels to shave the crud off. The water was murky, dense and dark green, opposite the Bahamian blue.

Bahamas waters---see anchor 12ft down

We went at it with plastic scrapers.  After an hour, we emerged to find some of that "crud" stuck on and inside our swimsuits and then I noticed some of the particles were itchy and wiggling. Yup, you guessed it... Sea Monkeys. Eeeuuuwww.  A shower rinse on the swim platform left a bunch of 'em dry and stuck dead everywhere.  Learn something new every day.

C-dock mates reunion in the Keys

On the fun side of things, we had a great time and rendezvoused in Boot Key Harbor with several of our C-dock friends from our marina, five other boats to be exact.  We're all on a life path of filling dreams and making memories.

Dingy-drift with the local dinghies

After checking several weather resources, we happily departed Marathon on Tuesday morning May 24th, with one of our C-dock friends, Kacy and Larry, on S/V Providence, heading 215nm north

Sailing with Providence--Kacy and Larry

back to Regatta Pointe Marina.  It would take 2-3 days traveling an average of 5mph.  We buddy-boated for a day and a night across the Florida Bay---notoriously known as crab-trap-hell---but easy now with the crab season over and further up the west coast of southern Florida.  It was a banner day with beautiful cloud formations, dolphins and flying fish.  A manageable rain shower followed a beautiful sunset as we sailed on through the pearl moon-lit darkness of the night off the Everglades. 
Tim loves and does better than me on these overnight sails. My beauty becomes the beast without sleep.  Nonetheless, we take shifts of 2-3 hours each.  All night long we watched a spectacular lightning storm dancing through the gigantic cumulus clouds to the south, as Scorpio chased Mars across the sky westward. 

About 3am, we communicated via VHF radio to our buddy boat, Providence, as they peeled off towards Ft. Myers anchorage for the next night, while we sailed Fiesta further north to stop in one of our favorite anchorages in Pelican Bay, near Charlotte Harbor, midway up Florida's west coast.  Dropped the hook and we were in bed and conked out by 8:30pm, up at 6am to start the final 70-mile leg of our six-month journey.  It was another picture-perfect day of sailing Fiesta. We were feeling confident and loving this life until the last seven miles up and around Anna Maria Island into Tampa Bay.  It became the three-hour jaunt from hell with 19kt winds on the nose and waves smashing and bashing us backwards.  Fiesta and our amazing Yanmar engine rode that wild hobby horse with determination. Welcome back to reality.  It's in these tough times that Tim takes the helm with strength and perseverance and I tend to whine and curl up in the cockpit corner, wishing it over (or wishing I was a dolphin underwater watching from another realm).   We joke about me being the "Captain" and he the "Admiral"; either way, it's really good to have back-ups and onboard support. 

Back home on C-dock in Regatta Pt Marina

It's been six months since we left the marina docks on the 28th of November, with 4.5 months of it spent wandering around the Bahamas. 

I'll repeat---it's all about the journey, not the destination and where one journey seems to end, another one begins, starting all over again; phases and stages.

We have decided to dock the boat in Regatta Pointe Marina in Palmetto, FL, instead of St. Petersburg City Marina (where we are still on a wait list anyway).  We will be fixing onboard projects for a month while plugged into the dock for air conditioning, thank god. Around the first of July, we will return to Taos for the next four months (or longer) to housesit for some friends leaving for Thailand.  We will also be looking for jobs (anyone got one?).  

Stay tuned... as we continue looking for "what's next?"

Happy sails and trails!