Tuesday, December 1, 2009 - Brantley Lake State Park, Carlsbad NM
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Snow at dawn, Brantley Lake State Park, Carlsbad NM, December 1, 2009
Yesterday I got nicely settled in here at Brantley Lake State Park, hooked up to electricity for the first time since I left NM last spring and what do I awaken to? Snow. More snow than I've seen in years. Well, a couple of years anyway. Pretty isn't it? I guess I'd better give the guys at Forrest TIre a break and delay our planned session with my right front tire a day or two.
The power just went out (9:30ish).
Experience with this old rig has taught me to be wary of getting caught with my infrastructure out of tune. Running short of drinking water or waste storage can turn an inconvenient breakdown into a big deal and I try to be ready to ride out a break down without having to abandon ship and move to a motel. So yesterday before I came out to the park I grocery shopped, then dumped my waste tanks on the way in and took on a fresh water supply soon after setting up. Too bad I didn't bother filling up on propane and gasoline. After all I have hookups and electric heat - I don't need no steenkin' generator or propane heat.....
[updated 10:30ish] The electricity is on.
In the it's-a-small-world department
Dr. Roberto Fierro was abducted last week. How do I know this? I was out for an early morning walk about the park and met up with a few fellow park residents to chew over the weather a bit. Brigid mentioned she had read or seen on the news (I forget which) that her dentist was kidnapped out of his office in Palomas, Mexico last week. That got the attention of the park host. Four strangers meet and two use the same dentist. Small world.
Night camp
Site 37 - Brantley Lake State Park, Carlsbad NM
- Verizon cell phone service - Access is via Extended Network, roaming
- No Verizon EVDO service - access is via the Extended Network and service varies with many drop-outs.
- See a list of the nights I've camped at Brantley Lake State Park
- Locate Brantley Lake State Park on my Night Camps map
- Go to Brantley Lake State Park website
- Locate services on my Resources map
- Check the weather here
Alex Can Think
Animal researchers are finally beginning to catch up to the little old ladies in tennis shoes who say Fifi the poodle can think. The fights are always between a big group of experts who think animals don't have a lot of feelings or aren't very smart, and a much smaller group of researchers who think there's a lot more going on inside an animal's head than we know. The really nasty fights always seem to go one way: it's always the animal "debunkers" who are on the attack. At least, I don't remember a single big academic fight where someone got fired or lost their funding for doing a study where the animal turned out to be dumber than people thought, and lots of studies like that have been done. Claiming that an animal can't do something isn't considered blasphemous.