Tuesday 12/1

Tuesday Dec 1 6pm

Left Akela Flats about 11am under lowering skies with a little blue showing here and there. Was supposed to clear out by late afternoon. Roads fine. Stopped at the WM in Las Cruces, mainly because the rubber seal on the sewer connector has broken and WM has a section of RV supplies. While there, went ahead and bought groceries, too.

Headed out of Las Cruces on Hwy 70 toward the Organ Mtn pass, San Augustine at 5719 ft. The mountains were white with snow, and I took some pictures while driving with one hand and just aiming out the window with the other hand. Who knows what I'll get, if anything.



Well, that one (of 17) turned out okay. The road curves right in front of that hill and starts up the pass, which is gradual on this side and steep going down the other side. Chugged over the pass and finally found a place to stop and take pix of the backside of the mountains and some other hills off to the west. On to Alamogordo.



The closer I got the more socked-in it looked, and the area showed about six inches of snow. There's a mountain range quite near and it could hardly be seen. Had no trouble finding the Bowlin store (although the GPS wanted me to turn right for some reason, instead of left). As the store was right there, I ignored the voice.

Kenn and Carol were working today, and Kenn showed me where to park. We're much closer than at Akela, about 10 ft apart, but at least the main window I look out is on the other side from them and I have a distance view. After some slogging around in the snow and slush, got hooked up. Came in to put away groceries and had a domestic disaster -- dropped an open bag of sugar. Sigh.

Also am picking up about seven good channels, all the main ones plus MyNet and CW and something called RTV. There's some Spanish and religion stations, too, which I can just ignore. Haven't ever figured out how to suppress unwanted channels on my remote, which I used to be able to do back in NC with cable. That way, I didn't even have to see those irritating folk (like Pat Robinson? Robertson? oh, you know who I mean) or sweating shouting exhorting folk with really really bad hairpieces.

The only bad thing is the sewer connector is higher than my rig, so the line doesn't drain well at all. This means I'll get to "walk the line" every day to help the liquid go down. The only thing going in there right now is kitchen sink stuff so it's not nasty. But still -- what a pain. It's going to be such fun doing the black tank.

There's a little house here with a bathroom we can use (a real shower), a washer/dryer, too. Really nice. I'm going to go over in the morning and take a nice hot shower. Right now, I'm about to have my first meal of the day and I'm really hungry.

Ta.