Road Trip Day 9, Taos

This ladies and gents is the beginnings of an Earth Ship. It just so happens that my cousin Jeff used to live in one. On first hearing the name, I had no idea what he was talking about and risked the thought of him being an alien lover and well...thinking abductions and such. And then, he brought us to his "earthship" that he rented years ago and explained the technology. Now, instead of a house, I want one. I want to help build one. I want to live in one. It is  a very cool concept founded by Mike Reynolds more than 40 years ago.

The idea behind an earthship is that it is self sustainable and can be built anywhere. The walls are made of glass bottles, tires and earth. The home has solar panels and a very well developed drainage system to bring rain water from the roof into the home through reuse and reduce. Basically the design principle is very simple:







This video will explain the entire building and living within an earthship.

It was truly eye opening to see how simple it is to live in a natural environment. You just need to purchase some land and build!

After we went through the earthship, Jeff brought us to the Rio Grande Gorge which is 650 ft. above the river. I had no idea that the Rio Grande runs all the way from the Gulf of Mexico to Colorado. The water level was not very high or gushing, but it was a very impressive site.