We booked a room at the Sagebrush Inn in Taos and encountered two coincidences on arrival: First, Kyle had been here before as a teenager. He came with his cousins to see a band play while in New Mexico on a ski trip. Second, the Keystone Symposium — what I understand to be the main conference for scientists in Kyle’s field — was being held at the hotel the following week. I traveled with Kyle to Banff a couple years ago to attend a Keystone conference, and I think the Banff location was much more desirable! (Not to knock the Sagebrush Inn, it was the perfect cheap but charming hotel for our road trip.) I had high hopes that Kyle might strike up a conversation with a visiting scientist while in the hot tub and make a job connection. No such luck!
Kyle had to make some final edits to his paper on Saturday, so I headed to the Harwood museum while he wrote. There was an exhibit dedicated to the Helene Wurlizter foundation, a prestigious artist residency in Taos that produced many important artists of the 20th century.
Sunday we visited an Earthship just outside of Taos — a type of self-sustaining, off-the-grid home built from recycled materials. The homes look like crazy Dr. Seuss creations but are incredibly inspiring.
One more strange coincidence: at a roadside diner between Pagosa Springs and Taos, we sat at a table next to a window with bullet holes. Later, in Taos, we sat in another restaurant next to a window with bullet holes. Probably just a BB gun but still — we must be in the wild west!
