I’m in Manzano Mountains State Park, New Mexico. The park is set in a hillside of ponderosa pine so the trees are usually whispering in the wind. A weather front was coming the day I settled in however I didn’t need a weather person to confirm the front since I was aching. Aching enough that I didn’t unhitch even though I paid for a couple of nights.
In the morning the wind picked up, the trees swayed and with every gust a show of old needles blew past my window. It didn’t make me much difference as I sat at my computer editing photographs. Pretty soon I heard rain and it soon changed to snow. It took most of the day for the front to blow through. By the time I was feeling good, it was time for bed.
Day two was beautiful though too cool to be outside without a jacket even in the sunshine. Usually the sun instantly warms everything by about 20 degrees however there was a wind blowing and the sunshine was just a bit cool. I went for a walk along the nature trail that had numbered posts and no information and the trail brought me back to the campground in such a way that I could leisurely snoop out the other campers.
There are three of us here, myself, an rPod that I envy over and a large white tent of the type often used by outdoor vendors. It appears to be attached to the mouth of a completely enclosed two-horse shaped trailer. A young man was splitting firewood at the third trailer and we exchanged waves.
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Its now several days later and I still have lots of curiosity about the other visitors.
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Thank goodness for public toilets in parks. My curiosity has finally been sated. Today I met the people in the rPod and learned the white tent dwellers consist of a man and woman who live in the trailer full time and are traveling around. The woman buys things at local shops and resells them on eBay. Apparently she knows merchandise and has made some excellent finds.
There is a school bus that comes into the park at 7:32am and returns about 4:30pm. The park ranger, who I had guessed to be retired and only working part-time, has a teenage son and the bus is for the boy. That also explains why the ranger typically starts his day soon after the bus leaves. He has an industrial strength golf cart type vehicle that the revs up and uses to drive around the campground usually twice. I hope he’s working and not just making sure the campers are awake.
The rPod people are a couple who formerly lived in the state of Virginia and moved out to New Mexico in January. Now they have a small condo in Albuquerque, and rPod and 130 acres not far from the park.
Pat offered to drive me out to their property, if I was interested in seeing it. Well, I’ve been building an adobe house in my mind as I drive through some repetitious parts of the country so I jumped at the chance to see what they were doing and to pick up a little local information.
Some people are simply good at interfacing with where they live and Pat is one of them. They have started acquiring the equipment they will need to live in the country so how to keep it safe when they are not always at the land became an issue. Pat talked to the local sheriff and was told to buy a container and lock it up. I’ve seen containers in yards, some with windows and doors added and I have wondered about them. Most are rusty or still wear company markings and add to the general disarray of yards. There is a business in the area that sells containers.
Pat and George bought a used one which on their property and they are using. While they await the arrival of the new one they also bought, they poured footings for the containers to rest on. Each container will then be bolted to the footings and then they will have a shed roof built over their tops. In the end, it will look like an old-fashioned corncrib with cribs on each side of a drive-through.
They also have a well, finding water was part of the buy-conditions. George was building a frame for a solar panel to power the pump while Pat showed me around. There are some interesting rock ledges begging for use and a small ravine loaded with rocks begging to be picked up. We looked at the ruins of someone else’s dream, guessed to be from the 1920s. And I saw the spot they have decided for the house, maybe. They are going to build a straw bale house. Each of them attended building workshops and George helped another couple work on their house so he has some additional experience.
Building for this year is almost done. Nights are in the lower twenties and they will be happy with finishing the storage shelter. In the meantime, Pat is gathering materials for a mud and wattle shelter she is going to create.
On the drive back to my car I learned they had 14inches of snow last year and couldn’t even visit the land. While no snow is predicted for next week, it is becoming colder. Highs for next week are going to be in the mid-fifties. Fortunately, I’m moving to a lower elevation tomorrow.
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