Tuesday, November 8, 2011 - Hidden Valley RV Park, Tijeras NM
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Hickory walking stick, November 8, 2011
So much for Albuquerque
I came here in large part to get the front end checked out and aligned to correct the altered right front tire wear that cropped up on the way out here with the trailer. But once I took a really close look at the tire wear and the mileage on the tire I decided it was not excessive and scuttled the plan.
So I made my stop at the Apple store, used their high speed internet connection to upgrade a few OS X apps and iPhone & iPad apps that are too big for my Verizon broadband accounts to gracefully handle, and managed to get out of there without any new toys. Amazing!
Walking stick
Having some time on my hands I came back to Hidden Valley and finished up the walking stick I had been working on. More on that tomorrow.
Night camp
Site 100 - Hidden Valley RV Park, Tijeras NM
- This is an older, 100 site, dirt pad, full hookup, RV park on a wooded hillside. The sites are a little small and close together by today's standards but are quite serviceable, quiet and clean.
- Verizon cell phone and Broadband service are available here with a strong signal.
- Locate Hidden Valley RV Park on my Night Camps 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.