Sunday, February 10, 2008 - Pancho Villa State Park, Columbus NM
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LD's new bathroom curtain rod, February 12, 2008
My new bathroom curtain rod
Today I'm going to take a break from the series of images of my walk up the Dog Canyon Trail at Oliver Lee Memorial State Park to show you a picture of the new bathroom curtain rod I made for this old Lazy Daze RV. Big deal eh - a silly little curtain rod? Such is the scale of life around here these days.
This is the latest in the series of curtain rods I've installed in LD. The first and most important were the ones in the dinette and livingroom I put up in place of the light robbing and ugly valances and dilapidated roller shades that came with this old buggy. Those just had to go before I set out on this trip but the mini blinds Lazy Daze used on the kitchen and bath windows I felt I could suffer along with for a while. At least until I found the time and inclination to do something. Kate Klein finally got my inclination up by asking me to make her some curtain rods for the bath and kitchen of their rig, Cholula Red. We needed to get hold of some aluminum rods for her project so I ordered a couple of extra rods for mine.
Like on my other rods, I made leather hangers for the them but in this case I'm using towels for curtains, an idea I borrowed from Andy Baird. Thanks Andy. Extending the rod into the shower gives me more towel bar to which I attached some of those little plastic spring clips that came on some coat hangers I found at Wal-Mart. These are the greatest little clips. Throw away the silly hangers - it's the clips we're after here. Not only do they fit my new rods but they work great as bag seals in the kitchen as well.
Now to find some nice new towels...
Night camp
Site 29 - Pancho Villa State Park, Columbus NM
- Verizon cell phone service - good signal
- Verizon EVDO service - good signal
- Go to the Pancho Villa State Park website
- Locate Pancho Villa State Park on my Night Camps map
- Check the weather here
Heliograph route between Fort Cummings NM and Tubac, AZ
1886 heliograph transmissions between Tubac near Nogales Arizona/Mexico, and Fort Cummings New Mexico: Joe Marques (Flagstaff) was doing some research in old Flagstaff newspapers and found something that might interest. In the Arizona Weekly Champion, Saturday August 7, 1886, page 2 column 1, it says: "A message was recently sent by the government heliograph (signalling by sunlight flashes) from Fort Cummings, N.M. to Tubac, Ariz., a distance of 400 miles, and an answer received in four hours." What a great [research] find! This was during the Geronimo Campaign of 1886, and the heliograph system at that time did indeed extend between the two stations. From Tubac, the most westerly terminus, the intermediate stations were Baldy Peak or possibly Josephine Peak just a little south of Baldy), Fort Huachuca, Antelope Spring, Emma Monk, White's Ranch, Bowie Peak (or Helen's Dome), Steins Peak, and Camp Henely (east of Fort Cummings). This means the message would have been relayed seven times, one way. It most likely was a test message, and relatively short, but I would love to know what it and the reply really said. The 1886 "airline" distance between Tubac and Fort Cummings; and of course on to Fort Cummings. I calculate the one-way distance between the two extremes as being 241 miles, with round trip of course being 482 miles.