All Hands (and an ATV) On Deck

When we arrived in Taos the other day, we knew the area had been through a snowstorm recently, but as we drove along the snow-packed road to our house, we didn't think there was any more snow than usual at this time of year. We were cruising along Mesa Sea, which is normally a pretty bumpy road, at a record pace, since all the ruts were nicely filled in with snow. There was lots of merriment and ho-ho-hoing as we turned into our driveway--and then it happened. The low-slung Chevy Malibu that Hertz had bestowed on us got stuck in a snowdrift, and even with Strongman Steve pushing as I ground the gears, we couldn't budge it.

We soon attracted the attention of several Mesa Sea residents whom we'd never met before. The first to come along was Tony, an Isleta puebloan. He joined Steve in pushing, but they still couldn't move the car. Next to lend a hand was the wife of the reclusive Minnesota couple who lives nearby; she returned home to fetch her husband for more he-man strength. By the time Mr. Reclusive Minnesota showed up, two men with an ATV loaded onto their pickup truck had already offered their snowplowing services, which we gratefully accepted. For eighty bucks, Francisco and Carlos cleared our driveway with a blade attached to their ATV and had no trouble pushing our car out of the drift.

As our snowplowing saviors were doing their thing, a woman drove to the base of our driveway, hopped out of her truck and said, "You must be Beth and Steve!" She turned out to be Sue, the owner of the Anasazi ruin house, who just that morning had been helping our neighbor Maggie dig out of our driveway. Maggie had kindly agreed to turn on our house heat the night before and had gotten stuck in the very same snowdrift that captured our car. Maggie had to leave her car there overnight and wait for some neighborly help to pull it out.

Francisco and Carlos, lifelong residents of Arroyo Hondo, informed us that this was the most snow they'd seen on the mesa since the early eighties. No one else on Mesa Sea remebers seeing anything close to this much snow, and certainly we never imagined needing to have our driveway plowed. But as I write this, the temperature has soared to nearly fifty degrees, and we've been able to take our morning walks along Mesa Sea with our gloves off and our coats unzipped--so maybe our main reasons for choosing Taos as our retirement destination (natural beauty and mild winters) aren't so farfetched after all.

Giving Thanks

Our first Thanksgiving on the mesa was a quiet affair--just me, Steve, and a nine-pound turkey. The weather was cloudy and cold, but not too cold for walking along new and improved Mesa Sea. For the first time ever, we stayed at home two days in a row without venturing into town. A kiva fire kept us warm, and two good books kept us from getting restless. Steve's book, The Replacement Child, was a mystery by first-time novelist Christine Barber which centers on a murder at the Taos Gorge Bridge. With that crime in mind, we drove over the bridge the day before Thanksgiving and hiked along the West Rim trail. Thankfully there were no dead bodies, just a few college students and a sweet little dog. Steve kindly posed for a picture on that warm and sunny day:

My book, The Elegance of the Hedgehog, is a wonderful story involving a French concierge, a suicidal twelve-year-old, and a wealthy Japanese gentleman. The author, Muriel Barbery, tackles Art, Beauty, and the Meaning of Life, with a little phenomenology and medieval philosophy thrown in for good measure, but the story is so charming that you're not at all put off by the characters' ruminations on such weighty topics.

After two sunless days, we woke up Saturday morning to find a sparkling blue sky and a dusting of snow:

This looks like the beginning of a new tradition for us, and we hope to spend many more Thanksgivings in Taos.