After the sale.

The Florida home is sold (finally) and we've moved into our New Mexico apartment, our temporary quarters snuggled up next to the Rio Grande, while we are building our new home on the other side of the mountain you see here.  Our elevation here on the river is 5,000' whereas on our home site in Santa Fe County we will be nearly 2000' higher at 6834'.  That will make it, on average, 6° cooler in the summer and colder in the winter.  Still our solar adobe design will keep us warm in the winter and cool in the summer with very little additional  heating/cooling required.  The adobe design is such that the massive 14" adobe walls and brick floors will absorb heat from the sun (captured through large south facing windows) during the winter days - giving off heat durning the nights.  Then the building mass cools down during the cool summer nights(the overnight low averages in the mid-50's during the hottest months) keeping the inside cool durning the day.

Next week I have an a lunch date with Joe Tibbets, an adobe expert, to review my plans and make sure we meet the new New Mexico adobe building codes.  We will then draw them up properly and go for permits. 

Making the move.

The Florida home is finally up for sale and must be turned into cash before we can begin building our adobe home in New Mexico.  Most of the maintenance here in Florida has been completed but some finishing touches still remain. (Are they ever complete?)  There is lots of interest in our beautiful home but no sales contract yet.  (Click on the link above for a virtual tour.)  We love our home here, near the beach and so many 'beachy' activities, but we are also anxious to move closer to our grandchildren and get back into the mountains of the West.  Every day we keep thinking, maybe this is the day we will get that acceptable offer.

The final drawings for the adobe have still to be completed, although the design and layout is.   The living space will be approximately  1500 ft², with loads of southern exposure for passive solar heating in the winter.  We have a long list of possible sub-contractors and can't wait to get started.  Of course we can't do much more without an acceptable sales contract in hand.

Acquiring the land.

     I will always remember our first trip to scout land in the New Mexico/Colorado area.  We combined leisurely skiing and sightseeing with an intensive search for the location of our final home.  It was March, 2006.  I had spent the previous 12-18 months gathering information on communities, cultural characteristics, weather, and land values from south-central New Mexico to southern Colorado and Utah.  We narrowed our search to this area because it met our criteria of a) being sparsely populated, b) reasonable access to important community services (shopping, medical, entertainment, and culture), and c) available wide open vistas.

     Thanks to my parents, Sassy and I were able to get a free week at a resort in Durango, Colorado.  Durango is a picturesque Western Town with tons of skiing, shopping, and site seeing.  It was perfect as abase for our operation.  From Durango we could drive to all our points of interest and be home (Durango) for the evening.  We skied at Wolf Creek, visited Chaco Canyon, and Mesa Verde.

     We started combing the ground between Pagosa Springs to Cortez.  Then we started working our way south: Cuba, Jemez Springs, Taos, Santa Fe, Pecos, Lamy, Galisteo, Stanley, Madrid, Los Cerillos, Edgewood, Juan Thomas, Mountainair, Socorro, and Magdalena.  Views, weather, access to Albuquerque and/or Santa Fe, and cost led us to concentrating on an area in south Santa Fe County.  In the end, we selected a piece of property large enough for our privacy and blessed with sweeping views of mountain tops, vast open plains, and distant mesas.