Endless Days...But Beautiful

Enough complaining. Here are some pictures of the beauty and wonders that surrounded us at Bottomless Lakes. All of these photos, except for the last one, were taken by Auntie Bucksnort.

Baby swallows in their nest by the bathroom entrance. They were guarded by three adults, who made every bathroom trip an adventure.

Once you got by the swallow guards, there was a tarantula doorman to greet you.
Vultures waiting for us to give up

Abundant plant life

Colorful mesquite beans
The little pirate band, temporarily in jail. Photo was taken just after Captain Emma ate all the leashes. (Left to right: Emma, licking her chops; Little Weets, aka Tiny Cujo; and Leny, my pillow mate).

Endless Days...And Nights

Sleeping in the little tent trailer is an art. There are enough beds to sleep at least seven very close friends. Mr. Zee, Auntie Bucksnort, the three dogs and I only make six, so there should be plenty of room--especially if the dogs acted like dogs and slept on the floor. Not our little doggy pirate band!

Bucksnort, for reasons best not enumerated here, got the two double beds to herself. The queen-sized bed (sounds spacious, doesn't it?) ended up with the other five of us rolling around and competing for sleeping space. Captain Emma likes the lookout position, which just happens to be the place where my feet would go, if they were ever allowed to assume a natural position. Little Weets likes to be right in the middle, under the covers. When disturbed, she lets the world know why one of her nicknames is Tiny Cujo. Her bared-teeth snarling sounds reduce us all to helpless giggles but no one has ever dared to touch her when she is doing her Cujo thing. Leny, the biggest of the pirates, prefers the inside edge of the bed, and Mr. Zee is quite happy on the window side. The problem is that the two of them sleep like wonky parentheses, forming this shape: ) (. My spot would be in the middle of those.

You will notice that the available space in between the wrong-facing parentheses is shaped like an hourglass. Now, if you have read this far (and I can't imagine why you would have done so) and if you know me at all, you will have to acknowledge that my shape is anything but an hourglass and never has been. Just keep that in mind when picturing our night under the stars.

In retrospect, I'd have to recommend against any kind of camping just two weeks after knee replacement surgery. I've been making a wonderful recovery, but night time is the most difficult because it is so hard to find a comfortable position. So there I was, shifting carefully in my allotted hourglass space, trying to position a pillow under the bad knee, then finding that I needed to do it all over again after fifteen minutes or so.

And then the snoring started.

Leny snores in what can best be described as harmonics. I hope that I am using the term correctly. What I mean is that she harmonizes with herself, kind of snoring in multiple voices, as it were. Then Mr. Zee would begin with a little counterpoint from the other side and both of them would gain in volume until I was shaking with laughter. And get this--every time I raised up my head to peer across to Bucksnort's quarters, no matter what the time of night, her eyes were wide open, which made me laugh even harder.

At some point I must have finally dozed off, only to waken at the earliest light to find Leny's tail section on my pillow (the one where my head was, not the knee pillow) and my head firmly clenched in Mr. Zee's armpit, which frightened us all very badly.

Next: The pretty parts of the trip

Endless Days at Bottomless Lakes

Mr. Zee has a special relationship with our little tent trailer. He worries about getting it set up before the sun goes down, and then he forgets to observe Camping Rule #1: Drink something, anything, to help you remember that camping is fun. Do this before trying to set up the tent trailer. Then he loses all reason and does strange things resulting in breakage and is very, very crabby.

We all went down to Bottomless Lakes for a couple of days of relaxation—Mr. Zee, my sister Auntie Bucksnort, and me. The dogs came along, of course: Captain Emma Sparrow (aka Hem E. Roid), Leny (Big Dog), and Weetzie (Tiny Cujo). The dogs and Bucksnort and I were all observing the first Camping Rule while Mr. Zee fumed and sizzled and broke things off the trailer. It was not an auspicious beginning, but we had all forgiven each other by the next morning, especially once Auntie Bucksnort agreed to delete all the plumber’s crack photos from her little camera.

Our camp site was in a picturesque spot. We could see Lea Lake, there were red sandstone cliffs behind us, and we had a wonderful view of the storms moving over the distant mountains. What we also had, there at our little campsite, were flies. More flies than you could possibly imagine; flies without number. Flies crawling all over us, the dogs, our food. Flies throwing themselves into our drinks, even when we changed over to travel mugs with the tiniest of openings. Bucksnort ate three, which she reported were minty, but crunchy.

I can measure the enjoyment of the other campers by some of the encounters I had in the ladies' room.

#1
Me, to middle aged lady at sink: Good morning.
She, grabbing my arm: How do you people stand these flies? We can’t cook, we can’t eat. We can’t wait to leave! Gaaahhh!!!

#2
Me, to teen-aged girl at sink: Good morning.
She, leaning in and staring at her own image after only one night of roughing it: [Silence].

#3
Me, to little girl at sink: Good morning.
She, backing away from me, then turning and fleeing: Mommeeeeeee!!!
Me, looking in my own mirror to discover wild hair, black circles under eyes, twitching caused by flies landing on skin: Mommeeeeeee!!!

To be continued...

Bottomless Lakes State Park

We drove down to see the Bottomless Lakes a couple of weeks ago. The name has always intrigued me and I wanted to see that part of southeastern New Mexico. Here is what I learned.

The chain of eight lakes is located in southeast New Mexico near Roswell (of UFO fame) and the Bitter Lakes National Wildlife Refuge. The area was set aside as New Mexico's first State Park in 1933.

The lakes aren't really bottomless. According to the official brochure handed out at the Visitor Center, they are "actually sinkholes that range from 17 to 90 feet deep. They were formed when circulating water dissolved salt and gypsum deposits to form subterranean caverns. Eventually, the roofs of the cavern collapsed from their own weight. Sinkholes resulted and soon filled with water and formed the existing lakes."

The Visitor Center was filled with interactive displays. I tested different types of water, compared the depth of the different lakes, and read a bit about the local flora and fauna. I learned there and from a wonderful New Mexico Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources (NMBGMR) website that the lakes are actually cenotes, "small perennial lakes within deep, steep-walled sinkholes that extend below the water table." Unlike other lakes that have water flowing in and out via streams, their water supply comes from underground springs and their water loss is through evaporation.

I would encourage you to check out that NMBGMR website. It tells of legends associated with the lakes--I like the one about objects lost in the lakes turning up in Carlsbad Caverns over a hundred miles away--and it details the geology of the area, including information about "Pecos Diamonds." Here is one last quote from the site, this time about the animals found in the area: "Rare and endangered species are found in the park. The small Pecos pupfish and rainwater killifish live in the lakes. The eastern barking frog and the cricket frog, also endangered species, live in the park. Their croaking can be heard throughout the day. Other animals include deer, skunk, snakes, lizards, jackrabbits, and birds."

Lea Lake, the largest of the chain, is home to a recreational area that includes tent and RV camp sites, a bathhouse, a year-round swimming beach, and pedal boat rentals during the summer months.

There are bike trails throughout the park, and a 3-mile mountain bike trail above the lake area out on the plains. We plan to go back down for an adventure-filled Zee Camping Weekend soon.