Day 44, Tuesday, December 13, 2016, City of Rocks State Park, NM 105 Miles

Site 1, City of Rocks State Park

Tuesday, December 13, 2016, City of Rocks State Park, NM 105 Miles, 3,301.4 Miles For the Trip

I got an early start this morning - up and ready to go at 7:00. It is the time zone change coming out of Texas; I'm now in Mountain Time so my body still thinks it is 8:00. In any case I was on the road by 8:00.

I'm also starting the journal page early while I still have an internet connection, and will add to it if this evening's sunset or night sky provides useful photos. I spent the entire drive on I 10, stopping in Deming, NM for a haircut. I went to Frank's Barber Shop, but Frank wasn't there. There was 4 people ahead of me & the place never emptied. I can't really say how good the barber was since my usual haircut is to take a #3 clipper & buzz the entire thing - not much skill involved.

After that it was a short 30 miles drive north to City of Rocks. I was hoping for an electric site so I could cook a pot pie, but all the reserved & first come sites were taken. I'm in Site #1, one of my favorite dry sites. A big boulder to block the wind an a great view of the rest of the park. $10.00 for the night. While the site is dry, they do have showers. I ended up using the handicapped shower because the water in the standard one never got hot (a single push button valve). Very soft water - you spend lots of time rinsing.

Strange cell coverage. A very weak AT&T that comes & goes, and a good, reasonable fast Verizon 3G, at least with my iPad. I fired up the Verizon Jetpack with the amplifier to use the laptop, got a 4G LTE signal, but it was dead - no mail, no web pages, Google, etc. Unplugged the amplifier & restarted the Jetpack, it went to 3G, and it seems to be working. We will see if it will post the pages. In any case, there are a few more photos at today's LakeshoreImages page.

Found a very large cricket or grasshopper (about 2" long") on a rock next to my site. As usual, the light & sky is great here, we will see how the rest of the day goes.

It wasn't the best sunset ever, but I took a few photos anyway. The moon rise looked great, but was in a lousy location for pictures.

Dinner will be one of the left over chicken legs.

Until Tomorrow -