The battery situation on the Bimmer turned out to be more complicated than I thought. I'd bought the battery new in Santa Barabra at an AutoZone only three months before, and I figured it would regenerate enough to start it, if I left it sitting for a entire day. But I tried to start it again, it was just as dead as before. After another night, I realized it needed some additional help.
I have AAA, but I'd used it a couple times recently and didn't want to get on any informal "bad lists" of customers who use it too much. Besides, there was an O'Reilly auto parts store right across the highway. So I got out my wrenches and took out the battery, then toted it across traffic to O'Reilly. They told me they could charge it up without problem.
But when I came back that afternoon, they told me the battery was completely dead. It wouldn't take a charge. Somehow my new battery was a dud. It was still under warranty, but the nearest AutoZone was a couple miles away downtown.
That gave an excuse to use the Taos bus system again. Thankfully the nearest stop was only a couple hundred feet from my motel. I've been in situations like this enough to anticipate that toting a battery onto a bus may or may not be kosher. So I wrapped it in paper bag and lugged it down to the stop and waited a couple minutes until the bus came.
The guys at AutoZone replaced it without any issues. I wrapped the new one in the same paper bag and rode the bus back to my hotel. When I put it in the Bimmer, it started right up and I was good to go.
The good side of all this was that I got plenty of work out walking around Taos and using the bus system for a couple days. It was refreshing to get to see the place from a pedestrian point-of-view.
For the couple days I was there, I'd been going to a coffee shop about half a mile away that I'd found online, and that I'd somehow walked past on the first day. It seemed like the best choice of the ones online. There was another one nearby called "Wired: A cyber cafe," but from the name it didn't sound appealing.
The place was a small and commodious place with good wi-fi. It was easy to work there. Yet I kept feeling like I was missing out on the "real Taos" that I'd heard so many talk about. Supposedly it was a big counter culture epicenter, but I didn't really see much evidence of that.
But things changed on the last day I was in town. I finally managed to get a hold of a friend of mine who lives there, a guy named Jim who is a sculptor. Actually he is more of an acquaintance. I met him once in Silver Spring, Maryland a couple years back when he was visiting and working with my good friend Howard, who is also a sculptor. At the time, Jim invited me to Taos rather enthusiastically, and it had been on my list to visit him ever since then.
But it turns out my phone doesn't work in Taos, so I put off contacting him. Also from his response to my message on Facebook I wasn't sure if he even remembered who I was.
But when I was finally able to talk to him on the phone, he readily agreed to meet up. The place he suggested to meet surprised me. "I like to go to a place called Wired," he said. "Oh yeah," I said. "I saw it online."
That afternoon, with the Bimmer now in running condition, I drove down the side street to the address of Wired. When I pulled into the parking lot, I immediately realized that I'd made a huge mistake about my perceptions of the place. From the name, I expected something sterile, with a row of desktops in cubicles.
But it wasn't that kind of place at all. It looked more like one of the sprawling camps from Burning Man. It was built in a haphazard funky way, from several buildings linked together by a portico. It had fountains and zen gardens inside, and wooden board floors.
This is the real Taos, I realized immediately. I should have been here the entire time.
Jim showed up a couple minutes later. We barely recognized each other, and I had to ask if it was him. We sat together drinking tea for a couple hours while we discussed his art, and our mutual friend Howard, whom we knew would be pleased that we finally met up with each other. Jim clued me into some other "real Taos" places to check out before I left town as well.
The next morning before leaving town I made sure to go to Wired, instead of my other coffee shop. I wanted to be as "Taos" as possible during my time there. If you want the experience, I suggest Wired as well. It's where the locals go to hang out.
No comments:
Post a Comment