Wednesday, January 16, 2008 - Bottomless Lakes State Park, Roswell NM
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Thump, thump, thump
All day, all night, thump, thump, thump. Sounds like an old 2 cylinder John Deere tractor idling off in the distance. What could it be? Nobody runs those things full time. Certainly not out here in the desert. I'll find out - when I leave the park I'll head toward the thump and see if I can find the source. And find it I did, a couple of miles east of the park - a large two cylinder pumping engine; pumping what I'm going to guess is natural gas and I'm also going to guess it's running on the gas it's pumping. But then what's in those storage tanks? Crude?
Heading out
Farther west, eventually, but to get there I have to get around the mountins just west of Carlsbad. That means either a run around the south end through El Paso, TX or heading north to Artesia or Roswell, NM and from there head over the mountains to Alamogordo, NM. I'm choosing the later, mainly to stay avoid driving the interstates around El Paso. First stop: Bottomless Lakes State Park, Roswell, New Mexico, at least for the night.
Today's journey: US 285 north from Brantley Lake State Park, Carlsbad, New Mexico to Roswell, New Mexico then US 380 east to Bottomless Lakes State Park
Night camp
Bottomless Lakes State Park, Roswell NM
- Verizon cell phone service - Access is via Extended Network, roaming and the signal is weak
- No Verizon EVDO service - access is via the Extended Network and I've found service very slow.
- Go to Bottomless Lakes State Park website
- Locate to Bottomless Lakes State Park on my Night Camps map
- Check the weather here
Disaster and the Failure of Authority
Disasters are almost by definition about the failure of authority, in part because the powers that be are supposed to protect us from them, in part also because the thousand dispersed needs of a disaster overwhelm even the best governments, and because the government version of governing often arrives at the point of a gun. But the authorities don't usually fail so spectacularly. Failure at this level requires sustained effort. The deepening of the divide between the haves and have nots, the stripping away of social services, the defunding of the infrastructure, mean that this disaster—not of weather but of policy—has been more or less what was intended to happen, if not so starkly in plain sight.
The Uses of Disaster Rebecca Solnit, Harpers.org, September 9, 2005