Day 8: Beyond Thunder Dome

After the impressive Rio Grande Grande Gorge, the road (always the road) holds more surprises for the insatiable traveller. Scattered around the landscape as far as the eye can see, houses that seem out of a Mad Max, post-apocalyptic scenario. I wonder who lives in such remoteness, what alternative lifestyles find refuge out in these desolate prairies. I imagine self-sufficient, off-the-grid communities of new-agers and zen-lovers.

Maybe I could live like this, away from it all, I don't know. I've always been attracted by landscapes of grandeur and desolation. Yet, I also know that I'm always there on a return ticket. We drive through the landscape and my mind is filled with thoughts of utopia.

Day 8: Rio Grande Gorge

We were still exchanging our views on the impression Taos Pueblo had made on us when, out of the blue, there's something mighty on the road. Nothing in the landscape gives warning that there's this colossal canyon, a gorge, ripping the vast plain in two. Now I realise how true is that epic scene of the cowboy whose horse halts on the brink of the cliff. So majestic and so scary. So absolutely awe-inspiring.

No words, no 2-D pictures can render the horrible beauty of the abyss below our feet. To think that this is the same Rio Grande we saw in southern Texas, the same Rio Grande meandering through gentle slopes. This is a Rio Grande sculpting an abrupt landscape. My insane, ever-present fear of heights dizzies me. I cannot look down. I cannot think I'm on a bridge. Fear almost maddens me but the beauty of the place wages battle against it. Antitheses fill my mind: beauty and terror, fear and awe, longing for terra firma while walking over the abyss. Exhilaration.

I cling to the rails of the bridge and you can see my fear as I pose holding on to my Tesla-bloke of a husband. But there's joy. Joy as immense as the imposing landscape around and beneath me. In my mind, the constant thought of gratitude for the things I've been granted the privile of seeing.

I feel gratitude the aptest feeling to have when in the presence of majesty...

EV Mobility in Arruda dos Vinhos

This post could look like one of John Oliver's Last Week Tonight episodes. It isn't but, just like in Oliver's case, it's about a last week event: the Tesla-Aficionado's performance at the beautiful Garden Room (Sala Jardim) at the Morgado Cultural Center in Arruda dos Vinhos. In celebration of the European Mobility Week, the Aficionado was invited to give a talk on the advantages of going electric and about his/our experience while transitioning from one mobility paradigm to a new one. From the screen the electric-mobility-Geek showed (based on our TV moment, you can check it here), you can see I played no mean part in the whole scenario (and scenario is quite the apt word).

It was a really great evening and I was positively surprised at the interest this subject seems to be raising. Lots of questions from the audience left us in convivial discussion and, before we knew it, it was well past midnight.
I would like to thank Arruda's Municipality for organizing this get-together and for the warm welcome: our Mayor André Rijo, the City Council Representative Mário Anágua, the Cultural Planning Coordinator Ana Correia and all those involved in the organization and promotion of this event. Last but not least, our thank you to all the people who gave their time and shared their interest by joining us on a fine September evening.

Day 8: Taos Pueblo

One of the reasons to set up camp in Santa Fe was to discover the Pueblo Culture. Not far from Santa Fe (consider "not far" as in American standards), there's Taos Pueblo, an iconic village ("pueblo" in Spanish) home to the Red Willow People. Taos is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and so our curiosity and enthusiasm were great.

Taos Pueblo is famed for its storeyed-adobe houses and said to be one of the best preserved sites of Pueblo culture. Moreover, we tend to associate UNESCO sites with fine preservation. I should know better by now... Anyway and anyhow, our hopes were high.

There's always something disheartening when you get to a place and you see famished stray dogs, open-air sewage and potholes. Before I even bought the admission tickets, I already had a feeling I had been anticipating a bit too much. Sure the adobe houses are there but it's hard to reconcile corrugated iron roofs with typical pueblo architecture. There's an ancient atmosphere in the air, something that speaks from within the earth and echoes quietly in the infinite skies but it's been smothered. Taos is tourist-staged, not natural and not genuine. Soulless. I am a tourist but Taos should be out of the reach of tourists (not that there are many tourists there). It should be left alone to resume its links to nature and its ancient past. You know what's to feel sorry for ssomething? I felt sorry for Taos. We took the mandatory pictures that tell us we were there and we are tourists and hastened to get out of there. We craved for the wide open, untamed spaces. We wanted the genuine experiences not this fake, run-down, forlorn place.

We put on a happy face and took one last picture then we left not in the least bit sorry for leaving and not in the least sorry for having come. I don't think we stayed for a whole hour. Goodbye Taos, Goodbye spirit of the Red Willow, we leave you alone and wish voyeurism leaves you alone as well.

Tomorrow in Arruda dos Vinhos

While I'm posting about our US coast-to-coast roadtrip, we're just back from a trip to Germany. Yes, the Tesla aficionado I call husband drove his EV all the way to Germany and, after some 11,000kms of a marvellous roadtrip, I'm happy to report that long roadtrips are possible with an EV.
The Mayor of our town has invited yours truly Tesla aficionado to give a keynote address about said trip. It's tomorrow at the Sala Jardim do Centro Cultural do Morgado in Arruda dos Vinhos at 21:00 and you're all invited.
See you there!

Day 8: Rio Grande

What happened to the placid rio Grande I saw gently meandering through the arid, wide open landscape of southern Texas? Here in New Mexico, the river runs singing a song of lively waters flowing fast. There are rafters and they laughter and chatting fills the air. There are no plains and the river looks entrenched between steep slopes.

I go on being amazed and awed with every corner on the road and with how this immense country is so capable of having us blown away by the constant changes in scenery. This is the Rio Grande, I keep remindind myself, the same Rio Grande I saw bordering Mexico in Big Bend and yet this seems a totally different river. Even the Tesla bloke is amazed.

Day 7: Santa Fe, New Mexico

It has been raining when we get to Santa Fe, late in the afternoon. It has also cooled a lot when we go out for a stroll in the art district of a town famed for its artists and galleries. And, indeed, art is everywhere. As are the reminders that we are deep in Native-American Territory.

Santa Fe is proud, as it should be, of its pueblo heritage. You can feel it the air. There's something lingering all around of an ancient presence, a force attached to Nature. It's both inexplicable and unavoidable that there's something special, somewhat mystical, about the capital of New Mexico. Land of Enchantment they write on the plates of New Mexico. Quite appropriate.

I scour the galleries in search of turquoises and Native-American jewellery. In one, I'm asked if I'd like to sell the earrings I'm wearing. I smile at the proposition but have to decline the offer. Looking for original jewellery, I find out I'm the one wearing original jewellery. It's not common, I realise, that someone should be wearing typical Portuguese filigree earrings in Santa Fe. I chat a bit with the gallery owner and imagine I could set up a profitable import-export business: Portuguese filigree for New Mexico, turquoise stones for Portugal. Somebody better not steal this idea...
On another gallery I get invited for the opening of an exhibition. I'd gladly accept but we're tired of all the miles we've driven to get her to this beautiful, "enchanted" place. Maybe next time because if there's anything I'm sure is that Santa Fe is one of those places totally worth a second visit. Maybe next time we'll get back to fully appreciate the traditional adobe houses, be inspired by the town's unique soul or, who knows, set up a crazy import-export business.

Day 7: Sandia Peak

Since we were in New Mexico, somebody said, why wouldn't we go to Sandia Peak? Sandia Peak?, never heard of it. And so we determined to go no matter how dead scared of heights I might be (which I am).

We took the tram (not as wobbly as I had anticipated) and up the vertical limit we went. On my mind: catastrophe, cables breaking, impossible salvation, terrible images fueled by a tram "driver" boasting about the number of tourists who fainted and threw up everyday on that dismal ride. I behaved, though. Bravely, I might add.

At the top of the mountain, a sense of exhilaration and accomplishment. New Mexico at our feet. They say we can see 11% of New Mexico from the top of Sandia, whose Spanish meaning is watermelon probably on account of the reddish colour the mountain gets at sunset.

We counted our blessings as we contemplated the majestic scenery and, in our minds, thanked for the fab suggestion we were given (an email also did as well). I also thought I could be in Switzerland such was the alpine setting with its pinetrees, the cool temperature and the ski slopes closed for summer. But down we must and down we went to continue our roadtrip.