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Our Big Ass Texas Adventure

Published on by beamingtoyou

During our 30-day self-imposed sequestration, we were daydreaming about how we’d cut loose at the end of the month. As it happened during one of our mindless web scrolling sessions, we lucked into finding tickets to see yet another exuberant performance of the incomparable Miss Margo Price on September 7th in Austin. Not just Austin, but Austin City Limits (or ACL Live)!!

Our 17th wedding anniversary was September 5th, and this heel-kickin’ country concert to benefit the Texas Hill Country Conservancy made our celebration plans a no-brainer. When else can we break out the Lucchese‘s? Carey had watched the American all-star lineup cross the ACL stage on PBS for decades as a little girl, and Ben was chomping at the bit for another exceptional live event with one of his favorites bands, not to mention the songwriting joy of Hayes Carll as the opener. Game on!

So, what’s the best way to get to Austin and back? Well, you make a big loop through Texas to include a quick a stop in Mexico.

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Resolute. Or something like that

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Thirty-one days into the new year and most resolutions have already flown out the window. I’m not really one to make resolutions, but I am one to hold myself to high expectations of achieving. Something. My quandary over the word ‘resolute’ in light of time’s passing, i.e. the new year, has me further reflecting on my decision to achieve in this relatively new off-grid lifestyle. Or more to the point, succeeding at life in general.

According to my dictionary.com app, words like ‘bold,’ ‘courageous,’ and ‘firm’ are acceptably interchangeable for resolute, and actually lead me to further puzzle over my standing in relation the goals I set for myself and the actions I take thereafter. These days, to be honest, I’m not apt to describe myself with any of the aforementioned synonyms. I’ll explain…

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Aaahhh… Springtime in the Rockies

Published on by beamingtoyou

You may have heard a quip or two about the schizophrenic nature of Rocky Mountain weather during the spring months (and snow on the 4th of July). If nothing else, I’m sure you are conjuring images of naked skiers with big grins and see-through skin underneath shiny-blue skies. The reality here in our first year is that after planting our garden too soon on exactly March 20th, the Sahalee Off Grid weather station recorded a high of 76 and low of 19 for the month of April (on the 18th and the 5th, respectively), we battled hail earlier this week, and it’s snowing as I write this! The week before that, we unexpectedly encountered the fallout of Spring’s moody temperament while on the road to visit family in Montrose, CO for the holiday.

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2017 Guide to the Land of Enchantment

Published on by beamingtoyou5 Comments

A new year has a lot of folks looking ahead to making travel plans for family vacations and quick getaways over upcoming three-day weekends. We thought that since we have been posting about our road trips around New Mexico and Colorado, some of you may be inspired to head out west in 2017. Here are a few attractions and travel resources to help you decide where you want to go and when.

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Denver or Bust

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Sturgill Simpson in concert at the Paramount on November 4th. Who could say no to that? We hadn’t even finished packing up the house in Cocoa and we were already planning the road trip to Denver way back in May. (Evidently the goosebumps hadn’t gone away from the solo show in Madrid.) This would make our third Sturgill session if we actually made it to the big city. (There were serious doubts about dodging winter weather at the time this date landed on our calendar.)  Well, the stars were aligned and the sailors shoved off… Denver or Bust!!

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Flyin' sideways

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Amid all the hustle and bustle of paid work and projects on the property, we were pleased to entertain two very good longtime friends Joe and Karin last weekend- Our first official visitors to Sahalee!!

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We have liftoff!!

Published on by beamingtoyou

In bed at 2:30am and up at 6:00 for some final tear-filled farewells before our 7:00am departure, today is the day we’ve been anticipating all these months… Lots of mixed emotions, but we’re finally and enthusiastically on the road to fulfill our modern day Manifest Destiny.

New Mexico or BUST!!


Unofficial road trip anthem: “Long White Line” by Sturgill Simpson.

Little Cistern, Don’t You…

Published on by beamingtoyou

Post soundtrack: “Little Sister” by Elvis Presley

The east side of the old adobe house in town we affectionately call ‘Casablanca’ was sucking up water like a sponge and we needed a more permanent intervention to ensure our new adobe work inside would hold up for the next 80 years. We put in a triple defense system to help curb the surface water runoff from the highway on the north side. This included drainage channels and catchment ditches, a percolating driveway surface, and a berm running the greater width of the lot that closed the main driveway. With the east side driveway now closed to vehicular traffic, we could reconfigure the yard to be the place of rest for a 1,000 gal cistern to catch the roof runoff via french drain. Again, very little professional consultation here. No matter the methods, all the advice we were given aligned on the main idea to move the water away from the walls. Period. Read on to see what we did and find out if it worked…

The below grade construction and downward slope from the highway were keeping our adobe walls wet inside
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Below Grade Garage Gotcha (Part II)

Published on by beamingtoyou

You can see how we addressed the inside of the garage in Part I, but there was a lot more going on outside to resolve the below grade drainage causing problems inside our old adobe home that we’ll share here. Mainly, we still had to divert the water coming downhill toward the house from the north and west side. (You can revisit our work to first repair the interior living space that suffered from over-saturation of moisture on the west side here.) Without any professional consultation, we devised an action plan to install a triple-feature surface water defense system. Without any additional heavy equipment, a lot of on-site material was dug out, relocated, re-positioned, and thoughtfully placed for new useful purpose. We actually had a lot of compliments on the outcomes we achieved here facing the highway when all was said and done, but the real win was that the garage is now dry! Read on to see what we did…

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Confessions, part 3

Published on by beamingtoyou

Seven years ago, I confided some hidden and sometimes unsavory truths about the off-grid yurt life. I’m not real sure why it took so long to put more of my frustrations and failures down before now, but I’m feeling compelled to share what’s behind the smiles and reveal more of the darker side of our sunshine-filled days here on the Continental Divide. Honestly, reading my first two entries makes me both chuckle and sob. What I thought were serious problems now seem so inconsequential, like dirty feet (chuckle), and some of the very important plans we had in mind then for our mountain-side homestead are still left to be actualized, like water catchment (sob).

I confess…

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