Shivering and shaking
Barney, the Old Fat Man, left me a comment this morning under my "and so it begins" post, the day before yesterday. I wish there were a way for new comments to be reflected on the front page of my blog so everyone could see that a new comment had been added, but I don't know how to do that. Maybe one day I'll figure it out.
I crawled out of bed shivering and shaking this morning in Trinidad, Colorado. As most of you know, I don't sleep with the furnace heat on in the camper; I only use an electric heater while I'm sleeping. Since I'm boondocking in the Walmart parking lot, there was no electric heat available. Hence, the 25° indoor temperature was only slightly better than the 20° outdoor temperature. But by then it was 7 o'clock and time for me to hit the road.
And the road I took was I-25 South, which meant I immediately had to start climbing up Raton Pass when I left the Walmart parking lot. There's nothing like heading up a pass that will warm a diesel engine up quicker than just about anything, so at least my truck was warm.
I stopped for a quick Egg McMuffin breakfast at McDonald's at the bottom of Raton Pass, in the town of Raton, and two things became immediately apparent. First, I could actually read the menu board at McDonald's, which I couldn't do before my cataract operations, and second, they had lowered the price of the Egg McMuffin meal by about three bucks. I guess it bothered the McDonald's honchos that even people like me couldn't afford to eat at McDonald's anymore.
A couple of hours later, I pulled into Storrie Lake State Park in Las Vegas, New Mexico, where I planned to spend a few days boondocking. I had a lot of questions I was planning on asking the Park Rangers about their new fee system, but then I figured, what the heck, when my Park camping pass expires at the end of this month, I won't be going to New Mexico state parks anymore, so why should I care about their new fee system?
Theboondork
These hills are on the other side of Storrie Lake. Scattered around these hills and especially on top, you can see a lot of the burned trees.
Only a few bird experts, such as myself, could have spotted this rare and often endangered bird wading on the edge of the lake; it is, without a doubt, a giant California Condor. It has a gigantic 8-foot wingspan, a long, sharp beak designed to rip apart large herds of animals, such as cattle and sheep, and piercing eyes that can spot a sloth from half a mile away. …The slow-moving sloth is one of their favorite snacks. I was very fortunate to get this picture. Considering that many people say I resemble a sloth, with my extremely slow movements and hairy body.
My new boondocking spot at Storrie Lake State Park. Under the new park rules, I'm only allowed to boondock in the primitive area, and in this case, the primitive area is next to the lake. Which is okay if you happen to like mud and biting bugs. But I'll only be here a few days, so hopefully it doesn't rain and I won’t get washed into the lake. … Or eaten by a giant California Condor.