Earth ships

So on one of my trips this summer, I went to Taos, NM for training and came across these 'earth ships'. I had never seen anything like it before and after riding by them for a couple of days, my curiosity got the best of me and so I paid the entry fee to get to check one out.

They are built into the ground, have solar panels, a grey water system, 'green house' inside and most of the building materials are from reused products. Not the most beautiful homes but whatever floats your boat eh? There was a whole community of houses and they drew a lot of curious visitors.

Entrance to the viewing earth ship...
Walkway to the earth ship...
The wall that really caught my eye when we were riding by...
Thank you beer drinkers for your contribution...
A close up of the wall...I'm pretty sure this is eventually covered...

The earth ship from afar...
Glass bottles and cans in a decorative pattern...
Domes...
No this isn't a trash pile but rather building materials....
So they cut the top ends of the bottles off and tape the bottoms together w/ duck tape and the bottoms is what you see sticking out of the wall. I think the bottles help with insulation? Total guess on that one.

So before you build your dream home don't forget to look into having an earth ship!

Last little bit...

Wellpers, that's it....no more road season, all done. I'm sad, which is a good thing, means I'm not burned out or ready to be in the off season(hopefully that mental toughness will pay off next year). I finished things up with the Gateway Cup this past weekend and won the overall.

I look forward to:

my next adventure(I'll have to wait and tell you about it later) at the end of this month

Aspens changing colors and going on some hikes

hanging with the family

endless rides with no time limit in the mountains till it gets too cold

So again, some more random pictures from my brother's house, post race fun and just general team bonding experiences....enjoy.

Verka and I enjoying some dinner outside their house
We were riding around the St. Louis Cardinal stadium when we came up on this sign for parking and insisted we take our picture and while we were there, Kelly saw an old friend of ours....next picture....
We met this guy at the Tour de Grove(St. Louis) races when it was raining and cold. He was one of those random folks that walks up to the tent, looks at all of us in our 'bike clothes', looks at all our 'bikes', crossed the barriers, notices other folks racing around the blocks and says, "Is there something going on today?"

So I obliged and told him we were bike racers and I inquired on what he did-he is the 'Bud Light' guy at the baseball games, you know the ones who walk up and down the stairs yelling, 'BUD LIGHT'. So I asked him to do his 'call', those guys always have something unique to get your attention and man did he let out a yell!!! It was highly impressive. So fast forward a couple of months and we had just finished taking our picture next to the Rock Star parking sign when Kelly says, "Hey, it's the Bud Light guy!" And sure enough......
I love me some chicken wangs! Grrrrrr
Post race celebrations.....Elk Grove I think....

I'm back home, feet kicked up, Miller snoring.

Reading: Tina Fey's Bossypants

Eating: nothing exciting to note actually

Watching: FOOTBALL!!!!!

Listening: my house noises, oh so sweet

Where am I?

These last few weeks, I've had a hard time keeping up with where I am and what day it is! HA! I went to a news stand yesterday and they were selling the Sunday Times and I asked if it was Sunday. The guy looked at me crazy and said, "No we sell the Sunday paper all week, it's Wednesday". Yeah...I knew that...

So the following pictures are from Aspen Women's Stage Race:

Ronnie gets to ride!!! She was on the hunt for Lance Armstrong:)
Ran into this guy after our last day and they finished in Aspen....very nice, I'm sure he was so tired:)
Fun ride the day after racing finished, we had a blast...
Won the Best Colorado Rider jersey the day of the crit and had fun with this picture;).....

Then we flew to Chris Thater, raced, won, before hurrican Irene shut things down. Stayed in Asheville for a couple of days with my brother again, no golfing this time. Instead, he put me to work-painting-BLAH. Then we hit the road again and now we are in St. Louis, getting ready for Gateway this weekend.

That will wrap up the road season for me:( That will be a whole other post......I'm sad it's over, so fast...