Ray Bailis - Real Simple, March 2003
Twilight
throws the outdoor shapes around the Bailis home into sharp relief,
silhouetting the black trees and Colorado's San Juan mountain range
against a smoke blue background. Then the world plunges into a deep,
silent darkness. A new moon cloaks the mountains to the south-they are
discernible only to the family that has grown to sense them there. This
is the true definition of "pitch black." In stark contrast to the hushed
outdoors, the Bailis living room hums with activity. Orange light from
the fireplace, the center of the family's universe, casts a warm, buttery
glow over the two young faces in the room-Max, eight, and Finn, three-as
they enlist their mother's help with a jigsaw puzzle. Ray, 40, looks
on from the couch, wondering aloud about the snow that has been predicted.
Live from Hastings Mesa, Colorado-this is Saturday night. Beth Bailis,
37, and her family live "off the grid."
They are not hermits, hippies, cowboys, or militia members, though they do generate their own energy instead of relying on the big utilities' power grid. And their home has all the modern amenities that any 21st-century family could hope to have. Microwave? Check. Internet? Check. Washer and dryer? Check (though Beth prefers a clothesline). Modern conveniences abound, but their use must be carefully planned: Running too many appliances at once will shut down the inverter, roughly equivalent to blowing a fuse in your home. 
Once, Beth's sister unwittingly started to blow-dry her hair while the dishwasher was running; Beth and Ray both dove for the button that kicks in the generator, and the houseguest was none the wiser. For the Bailises, rationing energy is not only second nature but also a way to become closer to nature. Unlike ordinary Americans, who are totally dependent on power companies and the nation's grid-which failed last August, plunging 50 million people in the United States and Canada into a blackout-the Bailises create their own power, and they know exactly how much or how little they can use. On the roof, solar panels soak up the sun and a wind generator harnesses the wind for most of the house's energy, and for still and sunless days there's a propane generator in the back. Most of the time, Beth says, remote living is one long adrenaline rush. "You feel like you can do anything," she says. Beth-part Laura Ingalls Wilder, part Picabo Street, part Ernest Shackleton-relishes the snow, the solitude, and the control it brings. When the snow falls and the road is blocked, that's when the world can't come in unless you go and fetch it. What the Bailises never have to go and fetch is a breathtaking view. It was the surrounding landscape and vista of aspens and distant snowcapped mountains that drew Beth and Ray to the property 10 years ago!
They first met at Colorado State University in Fort Collins. They moved to Telluride after two years in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where Beth earned a master's degree in landscape architecture at Harvard. Beth knew she wanted to live in the mountains, but the real estate in Telluride was too pricey; this house was affordable because public power was not an option and probably won't be for some time. 
"We thought, If anyone can do it, we can," says Beth, referring to their adventurous spirit and relative lack of responsibility at the time. The 1,700-square-foot house on 10 acres feels like one big room. It is anchored by an expansive two-story space that includes the kitchen, the dining room, and the living room-all lined with eight-foot-high picture windows. Two bedrooms upstairs open onto a hallway that overlooks the main room downstairs. A guest room is tucked away behind the kitchen. Out in the middle of nowhere, weather dictates how they dress as well as how they drive. Conspicuously absent are snowplows trundling by to clear the road. So from about November to May each year, Beth and her family must don snow gear and snowmobile the unplowed path 21/2 miles from their house to their cars, parked on the main road. Everything that Beth and Ray transport has to fit onto their snowmobiles or the sleds behind them, including children, briefcases, groceries, mail, garbage, sisters, brothers, mothers, and fathers. If it's too big, it doesn't go. "Living off the grid-that's a piece of cake," Beth says. "Snowmobiling is the real challenge." Anyone who has pushed and pulled a toddler's uncooperative limbs and head into Gore-Tex at 6:45 in the morning knows that jump-starting the lawn mower-like engine isn't all she's talking about. Autumn is the time to get stuff done, as so many things can be transported directly to the house by car. And summer is the time to lead pretty much normal lives, because they don't have to snowmobile and they don't have to worry about t! he propane running out in the middle of a blizzard. The kids in the area even run a traditional lemonade stand-a hysterical sight in the middle of the mesa. But last summer they raked in $80 on a single day. Almost all the passersby-usually travelers in four-wheelers-were customers.
Most weekdays Beth commutes the 20 miles to Telluride, where she works about 32 hours a week as a landscape architect. (Her design firm has planned a large portion of the outdoor spaces for Telluride Ski Resort.) Ray sells high-end doors and windows and teaches snowboarding in the winter. The boys also make the trek into town-Max to attend second grade, and Finn to go to preschool two days a week. On Wednesday, Beth stays home with Finn. Beth and Ray have dubbed the rest of the week "the juggle." On Monday and Friday, they take turns watching Finn in the morning and afternoon, alternately working from home. Beth's biggest source of stress? "Getting Max to school on time sends me to the moon," she declares. The trip can take anywhere from 40 to 90 minutes. She gets up at six and wakes the boys. She gets ready while they dress themselves and Ray makes breakfast. Then she makes the kids' lunches while Ray gets ready. Everyone shimmies into their snow clothes and scoots out of the house by seven. They pile onto one of their three full-size snowmobiles and make their way to their SUV or station wagon. During the subsequent car ride, the longest leg of the commute, Beth and the boys do word problems, listen to mythology or Shakespeare tapes, and tell stories. Max and Finn spend their indoor time doing puzzles, playing board games, and dressing up in costumes. The boys are allowed to saturate themselves in Saturday-morning cartoons, but there's no TV for the rest of the week, and there are no video games. When weather permits and Max deems the snow good enough for packing, they romp around outside. "My boys are true polar bears," Beth says. Twice last year, after hearing the door ope! n and close, she found Finn outside in his diaper, boots, goggles, and mittens.
He may have inherited his love of the outdoors from his mother: Beth grew up on a 500-acre beef-cattle ranch in southwest Missouri and spent most of her own childhood outside. "I was just a child of nature," she says bluntly. "I would leave the house in the morning and not come back until the afternoon. Fishing, walking the creek-I never felt afraid. I always felt cradled." Beth and her brother and two sisters whiled away summer days swimming in the creek. "We would bathe in it nearly every day," she recalls. "We'd bring our shampoo, suds up, and dive in." When summer ended, it was a visceral shock to her system. "I'll never forget the feeling when it was time to go back to school. I'd find myself standing in the shower for the first time in months. "Beth hopes her boys will be grounded by nature in the same way. She loves how Max, in all his self-portraits and family sketches, includes the mountain range behind their house. "He really has a sense of where he is from and who he is," she says. She expects that their upbringing will help her boys feel unique, the way she felt when she left the ranch and went to college. The various specifics of how they're different are not important. "It just gives them an identity," she explains.
The house started out somewhat less perfect than its surroundings. The structure was originally heated by a woodstove that needed to be stoked at three in the morning, the propane generator was faulty and soon died, no solar panels existed on the roof, and the windows needed replacing. It was a veritable boot camp for do-it-yourself novices. They burned through candles like mad and learned how to survive on very little energy-without overreacting. "We laugh our heads off at Survivor and Fear Factor," says Ray. "Very few things wig us out." They are also always learning new ways to be resourceful. "Our lives depend on bungee cords for strapping things! onto the sled," Beth says, only half-joking. "If we don't have enough, it's not an option to go across the street and borrow or buy one. "Blackouts? Brownouts? Bring 'em on. "All our friends in Telluride wanted to party at our house on New Year's Eve in 1999 because we were the Y2K-proof house," Beth recalls. "So many people ended up coming that we had to make it BYOS-bring your own snowmobile."
The Bailises might move closer to Telluride one day, but they hope to stay off the grid and away from city life. "One of the most depressing things is to watch it snow on concrete," Beth says. 
"It just melts when it lands. "Today snow is landing all around the house, pummeling it from the west and swirling past the windows as if in a just-shaken snow globe. A mug of tea clutched in her hand, Beth scans the horizon for coming weather. She can tell the exact day when summer turns to autumn by the slight rustle the leaves make. "I'm not smarter," Beth says. "I'm just tuned in." The sights and sounds of Beth's world are a far cry from Main Street USA's. "When I come home, I don't hear car alarms, see the glare of a streetlight, or look at power lines overhead." She finds it comforting to see a neighbor's home in the distance-a warm glow tucked into the snow and shadows beneath the yawning sky. In the center of this quiet stillness, it's easy for Beth to focus on her family-and decisions follow in lockstep. Concerns are very basic and central. "But I can be like any other working mother, scattered as hell," she says. "Just because I'm surviving out here doesn't mean I don't do stupid things. I am no Zen master. I just have fewer distractions."