New Mexico

Today we traveled from San Angelo, TX, into New Mexico - a longer trek than we like to make in one day but there wasn't a planned stop in between. West Texas is flat flat flat - red dirt fields of cotton and wheat dotted with oil wells and, a more recent feature on the landscape, huge wind generators.

It's still warm, in the high 90's, with a few clouds decorating the sky. Pretty good driving conditions actually, and we've seen some interesting sights along the way. One small town we passed through, Tatum, New Mexico, has street signs, public office signs, private ranch sings, all made of iron silhouettes. They're all very nicely done and really added a nice touch to the otherwise sleepy burg.

We arrived at our destination, Bottomless Lakes State Park, around 3 P.M. We're camped at Lea Lake, the largest of the "bottomless lakes". They aren't really bottomless, but look that way, and this one is 90 feet deep. Close enough if you can't swim! The surrounding cliffs are red limestone, so the effect is very picturesque. We stayed in the RV until the weather cooled a bit, then ventured out to visit with a few of our neighbors.

A group just down the road from us had horses, so we asked where they were from.... what an adventure. Most of the riders are from England, and they came here as part of a project to follow the Goodnight-Loving cattle trail. If you aren't familiar with western history, this was one of the most famous of the trails used to drive beef to the northern states, and figured largely in the Lonesome Dove series.

This project, called The Long Ride, was quite awhile in the planning. This group started out near Dallas, TX. Some of the riders will trade off part way along the trail so at the end there will have been many participants. The organizer is hoping to make a documentary out of the experience. It was fascinating meeting the various members of the group, but when the mosquitoes started snapping we decided to go home for the evening.

A short time later the magnificent desert sunset drew us out again. The water tower, part of the stone structures built here by the CCC corp., made a nice silhouette.

On the Road Again

We left San Marcos yesterday morning around 10 A.M.  It was 77 degrees when we got up, with 84% humidity! All of the windows in the house were covered in condensation. I thought it was on the inside and tried to dry it off when I discovered it was all on the outside! I good time to be leaving I think.

We stopped at San Angelo State Park for the night. This morning we went in to San Angelo and did a bit of exploring. Unfortunately many of the quaint shops, including the bordello museum, are closed on Mondays, but the proprietor of the bookstore we were interested in, Cactus Book Shop, showed up so we found some new reading material and admired their antique and collectible books. It's definitely the source for Texas and western history. We loaded up with ice and headed back to camp for some R and R, reading and a cold beer. With the weather so hot (high 90's) we're not too active outside, but the scenery is nice. The grasses are drying, and with the scattered mesquite trees and the flat land around the reservoir the area resembles an African savanna.
Orioles and scissor-tailed fly catchers, cardinals and other song birds sail around in the trees and there has been a woodpecker checking out the truck. As long as he doesn't start pecking holes in it I think we're safe. We'll stay here again tonight, then tomorrow morning we head for New Mexico.

Midnight marauder

Apparently all the food consumption and general chaos in the garden shed that I had attributed to the squirrels was, in part, the work of these little guys....

This is probably the mother raccoon.... and she appears to be looking around for her companion. He's probably still rooting around in the garden shed, looking to see what he can get in to there.

In the next shot, five minutes later, you can just barely see the curved back of the little one in the V where the two tree trunks come together.

Note on the time stamp, the two photos were taken about five minutes apart.

The last shot shows the young one (based on the skinny tail) heading over the tree.

Between the two of them they cleaned out the squirrel feeder box, which was stuffed full of bread scraps, leftover chips, and other goodies. There were two very dry hamburger buns in the basket feeder on the left side of the post, and they were gone in the morning, but are still there in the last photo so apparently they took a last turn around the buffet before giving up for the evening. I left 5 dry muffins for them in the garden shed last night and they were all gone this morning, so they are eating pretty well!

I don't leave food out every night - don't want them to get too dependent. I'm sure they visit the compost heap, and many of our neighbors have chickens, feed their dogs outside, etc. so I'm sure the grazing is pretty good around here.

So much for the myth that they need water to eat. I've never seen even a crumb in any of the outside water dishes and they seem to do a way with a lot of food without it. These photos were taken with our trail cam, which was hanging in a tree a few feet away.