Saturday, April 23 and Sunday, April 24
Outdoor kitchen at our Bighorn camp, Glenwood, New Mexico
The weather is balmy all weekend!
High temperatures are in the 70s and 80s, depending upon where you sit — warm in the sun and cool in the shade of a cottonwood tree.
Bighorn isn’t a destination campground.
Not being much more than a place to pull off Route 180, campers usually stay for one night on their way to someplace else. The campground is near the road; a screen of trees and brush provides separation. One hears the traffic, but it isn’t annoying. Vehicles zip by without applying jake brakes, revving, or shifting.
Bighorn is a free, primitive campground in Gila National Forest.
At the far end of the campground, the lane goes around a vault toilet building. Off this loop are five campsites tucked among the cedars, mesquite, and cottonwoods. A dry wash borders the side opposite the main road side.
The dry wash as seen from our door
Two additional campsites are closer to the entrance.
The crew and I are in one of those.
Saturday, while the crew and I are outside enjoying the sunshine, the campsite next to ours is visited by a man with his two grandchildren. Automatically I pray they don’t turn on their radio, yell and scream, play a guitar badly, or perform any of the other behaviors that inevitably drive me indoors with hands over ears.
I’m delighted that they enjoy their picnic quietly.
Even the children are soft-spoken! When they leave, they take all their trash with them. How very nice.
Our weekend is peaceful which allows me to rest and recuperate.
The traffic, what little there is, becomes white noise. A roadrunner coos frequently from the other side of the wash. If you don’t know the sound of a roadrunner, click that link and listen. Not what one would expect from a bird that looks like a starved chicken and always seems to be in a hurry.
At dusk quail make their distinctive “chip-chip.”
“Wow!”
I’m in the lounger, having finished the dishes, when I hear the “wow bird,” the same bird call I heard at our Roosevelt Lake camp. I stare into the area from where the sound originates and see no movement. I wonder if it’s a ground bird. The mystery remains.
The one other RVer here — with a travel trailer — is gone most of the day Saturday.
Bridget, Reggie and I walk the end loop and I take this photo of an empty campsite.
The sites are “cozier” than ours. I passed them up to allow folks to be near the restroom and also because the site I did choose is by itself, my preference always.
Sun and shade
This photo shows the size of the site.
Plenty of room to back in a large rig
Sunday Bridget wakes us up before dawn.
She needs to go out for potty. I sit up in bed and in the early light watch three deer trot by the back window, between the Best Little Trailer and the picnic table.
(The deer photos are from subsequent mornings. Three deer go through our campsite every morning. I don’t know if they’re the same ones.)
A deer stands at the other side of the wash and watches Bridget.
She doesn’t realize curious eyes are on her. (In my haste to grab the shot before the deer takes off, I don’t think I gave the auto-focus time to finish. I post it here anyway.)
Excellent camouflage! No wonder Bridget didn’t notice.
Monday, April 25 and Tuesday, April 26
Gusty, cool wind blows through our camp both days after chilly nights.
Upon waking I turn on the Wave 3 heater.
The heater is centrally located, mounted on the fiberglass channel, near the floor and underneath the storage cabinets.
Bridget walks by the heater with no concern. Reggie, however, is not accustomed to it and shies away. I have to carry him past the heater.
“Reggie, that’s what makes it comfy in here.”
The sun plays peek-a-boo with the clouds throughout the day.
The crew and I mostly stay inside. I download the Louis L’Amour book,“Flint”
I choose it because the plot takes place where we are now and where we are going. It’s fun to read with my New Mexico Benchmark atlas in my lap, figuring out the trail taken by the lead character, as he goes from shooting up bad guys in a small town to his hideout near lava beds in the northwestern section of the state.
L’Amour is easy reading and refreshing.
I weary of books about serial killers, CIA operatives, women investigating family history because of some letters they found in the attic, the frantic search for an abducted child, a countdown to total destruction of the planet, blah, blah, blah.
Give me a mysterious man on a horse once in a while.
I already know he’s gonna’ fall for the pretty woman who runs a cattle operation and also he will get rid of the gang of bullies trying to steal her ranch . . . . Doesn’t matter. I like the writing. And no strain on the brain.
View through the back window screen as I read in bed
Wednesday, April 27
No wind this morning and the sky is clear blue. Sunshine has the house battery up to 13.6 volts by 8 a.m. It probably will near 15 volts by noon.
Today marks our sixth day at this “overnight camp.” I’m in no hurry to move. I haven’t even unhitched the BLT!
rvsue
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TENS unit
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Skechers Mens Equalizer Slip-On Sneaker
ASUS HD Portable USB-Powered Monitor
12-Volt Jump Starter with Power Source and Air Compressor
Reggie aka “The Reginator” aka “Babyface” — Guilty of murder in the 1st degree in the deaths of Limey and Sock Monkey, April 2016
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