it’s my blog, so I can talk about the weather if I want.
On top of the mud of mass destruction comes today’s gift of water from the gods: when we came out of an afternoon movie downtown, it was pouring down rain harder than I’ve ever seen it here outside of a thunderstorm. By the time we got to our end of town, that had changed to heavy wet snow. The very heavy snowfall, coming straight down at high speed, went on for a couple of hours. It’s tapered off a bit now, but the wind is picking up, and great thudding globs of semi-frozen slush are falling off the trees onto the roof. I went to turn on the TV, and the satellite dish was kaput. Another five minutes outside in the unspeakable cold and wet with a broom cleared the dish, and programming is restored.
Tonight, of all nights, a little TV will be welcome. I don’t know how long we’ll be connected to the outside world, however: the wood delivery yesterday dug ruts in the driveway deep enough to expose somebody’s buried telephone cable, now totally submerged in glop. Ours? The neighbor’s?? Whoever’s DSL goes out first will tell the tale.
A good 10 days of melting and partial drying, undone in half a day. It was already worse than than anyone can remember, and now we have another flood. I expect half of Taos to be inaccessible tomorrow. Even graveled driveways in town will turn to pits of mud.
We have company coming the day after tomorrow. They’re down in southwest NM tonight, where it was almost 70 degrees and sunny today. Poor folks won’t know what hit ‘em!
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A weather question for the newly self-appointed Taos Weatherman. If it’s too far outside the scope of your Blog, so be it, but you DID open up the weather discussion!
What has the Winter been like south of the Gorge, like in Velarde, Alcalde, etc. Being below 6,000, did they get all the snow/mud? We HAVE been considering moving to El Norte, and your missives are daunting. Not the soul of Taos, of course, but ….
Thanks,
John
Obviously things have been warmer at lower altitudes. How much warmer, I couldn’t say. But there are lots of wonderful places in NM that won’t freeze your butt off.
As for daunting, you’d better believe it: this is a very harsh environment here, and there are few of the customary amenities (like good roads and emergency services). The Chamber of Commerce line is total bullshit. This would be a TERRIBLE place to retire, unless one is here for the reasons I wanted to move here: to live in a place where Nature dominated man (and not the other way around), to be closer to Native Americans, and to live where I have the most personal freedom. This definitely qualifies on all counts. It will also drive you mad unless you get away frequently.
Good Points:
1. Best food I have ever eaten anywhere, period.
2. Acceptance of differences, great personal freedom, emphasis on the spiritual.
3. Except for this past winter, the best climate I’ve ever encountered.
Bad Points:
1. Clueless upper-middle-class emigrants expecting suburbia-in-the-mountains
2. Dust
3. Cold
4. Mud
5. Wind
6. Poverty
7. TENSION (from spiritual energy, rift valley, isolation, etc.)
NOT FOR THE CASUAL OR FAINT-HEARTED. This place is most suited for emotionally & financially independent individual artists & seekers. And professional skiers.
Generally speaking, there are no jobs, housing is expensive, and everything you do takes twice as long and costs three times as much. But the spectacle of untamed nature makes me cry, so there you have it.
Thanks for the nice summary.
My wife is an Artist, but the Austin artscene is almost totally NY-style Neo-Dada BullShit masquerading as art because someone says “it’s important.” Or it’s got bluebonnets/cactus/cows in it. So being There would be a good thing for her. And I totally buy the spiritual thing. Plus, for me, it’s a place I’ve been going since I was a little kid and has that romance built in.
I just thought you might have driven south at some point recently and noticed whether the little towns north of Española were drowning in Snow and/or Mud.
There’s one additional aspect you may not have considered, and that is having your vote actually possibly count for something. Here in the land of Gerrymandered districts, even Austin can produce only one Democratic US. Rep. MINE has a perfect record on the environment… he’s voted against it at every opportunity. Being a blueberry in a bowl of tomato soup can be pretty disheartening.
But I’ve put up my Obama yard sign and started a pool on how long it will stay up.
Thanks again,
John
Well John, it’s always warmer down south. And in the canyon (where you mentioned), it’s usually greener than up on top. I’m sure the mud is only affecting us in Taos County. Sounds like you’d be fine here, though. And you already have your Subaru!
You’ll have to excuse me today, I’m more harried than usual. Our housing/mud problems are awful at the moment, and I’m about to explode.
I called about a neat-sounding house for rent in the paper, but the managing realtor said she hasn’t been able to show or rent the place since November because of the mud on Hondo Mesa, which she said is “horrible.” She actually refuses to take people there. Yes, hundreds of folks live out that way. I wonder how they’re coping???
Yeah, I drove out there to the John Dunn bridge last October, and the roads were a challenge when dry! Had a weird experience out there. A teenage guy and girl were walking on the road from the bridge to the town. Guy had his sweatjacket hood up over his face. We stopped to ask directions and it turned out the guy was badly hurt… big gash on his face and broken ribs. SAID he’d fallen into the ravine while running and didn’t want any of his friends to see him. We put them both in the Subie and drove as close to his Dad’s house as he wanted anyone to see him in a car.
I grew up in a small town, but not THAT small.
J