Thursday, January 31, 2008 - Oliver Lee Memorial State Park, Alamogordo NM
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We like serendipity
I had planned to leave Oliver Lee yesterday, pick up the replacement for the compromised credit card a friend so graciously forwarded to me to General Delivery at USPS in Alamogordo and head westward once again. But I couldn't confirm online that it had arrived on time and since I didn't need to leave on any schedule, I signed up for one more night here and took a nap. We like naps too.
In time I opened my eyes and what should they slowly focus on way out beyond my toes, filling the aperture of the windshield - two horizontal red stripes. Could that be the rig I think it is?
I think that's Skylark
Yep, that's Skylark. Skylark is a well known Lazy Daze RV, home of Andy Baird, moderator of the Yahoo Life With A Lazy Daze RV discussion group. Andy is the guy largely responsible for my being here today and it's about time he knew it.
We like serendipity.
That was yesterday
Today Andy's friends Kate and Terry pulled in with Cholula Red and set up across the way. I may be here for a while.
Night camp
Site 8 - Oliver Lee Memorial State Park, Alamogordo NM
- Verizon cell phone service - good signal
- Verizon EVDO service - very good signal and access speed ( I have to qualify this - during my January 2008 visit the signal and access speed was excellent - in January 2009 it was practically non-existent during the day and slow at night with unpredictable short periods of excellent access)
- Go to Oliver Lee Memorial State Park website
- Go to Oliver Lee Memorial State Park on my Nightcamps map
- Check the weather here
Listening
As the poet Gary Snyder said so well, "Beyond all this studying and managing and calculating, there's another level to nature. You can go about learning the names of things and doing inventories of trees, bushes, and flowers. But nature often just flits by and is not easily seen in a hard, clear light. Our actual experience of many birds and wildlife is chancy and quick. Wildlife is known as a call, a cough in the dark, a shadow in the shrubs. You can watch a cougar on a wildlife video for hours, but the real cougar shows herself only once or twice in a lifetime. One must be tuned to hints and nuances." After more than thirty years of living in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada and spending a great deal of that time out-of-doors, Snyder has seen the mountain lion on just a few occasions. One of these sightings was most unusual. Gary had been visiting a neighbor and was walking down from the nearby ridge to his home when he observed a cougar sitting near one of the windows of the house. The animal appeared to be listening intently as one of Snyder's stepdaughters practiced the piano.