New Mexico, Colorado and Kansas

Taos New Mexico

Taos is a town in Taos County in the north-central region of New Mexico in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. It has a very rich and interesting history as the region and the native American tribes living there got colonized by the Spanish (in a very cruel and inhuman way). The Indians living there were forced into catholism, inslaved and suppressed, but still were able to keep their traditions alive throughout hundred of years. After the American-Mexican war, the region become part of the United States. The Indians (who still live in Pueblos like hundreds of years ago) and the Mexicans still have a huge influence on the culture and the art you see around their.

Staying in Taos was a great experience as we were very fortunate getting invited to Suzie's and Sandy's place (and to sleep in their RV trailer - whoop whoop) and they showed us the surroundings and told us about the history of the Pueblo Taos (NM). When we arrived we were first of all very impressed by their house + the garden. The way how they rebuild their house in Pueblo style was something we had never seen before. It just looked so cool and so different: the whole interior, the colours and the garden with its beautiful flowers. Just cool!

They took us for dinner and we had a quiet first night catching up as we only had met 6 weeks ago. The next morning Suzie took us for a short hike up in Taos Ski Valley (with Milly) and we had a lovely burrito lunch at Abe's.

The coming days we did a lot of nature and culture around there:

We visited the Taos Pueblos and took a guided tour. Native Americans show you around their village and tell you all about their way of living, their resistance and how they try to combine the modern world with old traditions.

We hiked up the Wheeler Peak which is a 4012 m high mountain. That was awesome. Starting early in the morning, climbing up that mountain for 3 hours with oxygen getting less and less the higher you climb, nature changing from green forest to a stony, harsh environment, watching bighorn sheep, marmots and fluffyballs on our way up and reaching the peak as a reward in the end. That felt really good. It was just a shame that it started raining and hailing the last 1,5 mile on our way back so we got pretty wet on our way down.

What felt less rewarding was seeing a guy running up the mountain. Running! We were crawling, trying to survive and he just ran! Rick even asked him to stop running as that hurt our ego. LOL.

Side story: We met Jake and Tom on our way down. We had a quick chat with them while they were heading up and us down when they said: "Oh, you are the two Dutch! People coming down already told us that there are two Dutch climbing up this mountain. When you are still at the Bavarian Lodge at the bottom when we get there, we will by you guys a beer." We did meet them after a few hours in the Bavarian Lodge and had a beer together.

We visited the Taos museum to get some more impressions of the history of the region.

Suzie and Sandy were awesome all those days. Cooking beautiful dinners, helping us out with everything (threated our wounds as Rick and me kept bumping into things there), shared all those cool stories with us (their motorbike tours, Suzies 1100 miles bike tour) and showed us how to dance the 2 step. They treated us like their children. I really admire their way of living. They try to enjoy every single minute of their live and that is what people should do. Live and enjoy living. We left them with a heavy heart. Those two are just great. Love you guys.

Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve

The Sand Dunes National Park is another very special National Park in the US. The landscape is formed by "wind, water and changing seasons". You can find big sand dunes, rivers, mountains & wetland next to each other, forming a unique environment. We hiked up the sand dunes barefoot which was very hard! I almost fainted up there as it felt like hiking through the desert.

Rick did not really have a problem hiking in the sand. He rent a sand board and did some boarding in the sand which looked more fun than it actually was. The sand was just too hard.

In the evening we enjoyed some hot pools at the close by camping.

PS. On our way to the sand dunes we visited the Earth ships, as well. Impressive how people can build those environment friendly houses and live completely off the grid.

Lawrence

Lawrence is a small university town just before Kansas City. We visited that town as Rick tried to find a place to watch soccer (NL vs France). After calling some bars who were NOT helpful at all, he called a bar/restaurant named Johnny's Tavern West where they were finally willing to help him out. Spencer, the manager, promised to switch the channels to soccer if we came by. We drove 2 days in a row to be able to arrive in Lawrence on time. We went to that restaurants/bar to meet up with Spencer and had an immediate click with him. He is a young, cool guy who loves to travel as well and already travelled some parts of the world. We even got invited to stay at his place. Their house is just amazing!

Even though Holland lost we had a great day in Lawrence. Spencer took us out and we had a lovely dinner with his parents. Maybe he will even join us on our roadtrip a couple of weeks.

Fort Leavenworth - Visiting Jasmin

Currently we are in Fort Leavenworth were my friend Jasmin lives with her family. It is an army base and the surroundings are, again, a complete different world compared to anything we have seen here so far. It is so nice to see them here in the States. We thought we would not see each other for the next couple of years and here we are talking and laughing as we just saw each other yesterday back in the days where we grew up together.