Mammoth Takes to the Bats, Day 3

 Thu 13 July

On to Oasis State Park near Portales, New Mexico. The drive west took us through the broken country just south of Caprock Canyons. It wasn't a bad road but the terrain was challenging.

 

Eventually we climbed up out of it and ended up on the Llano Estacado, the big flat plain of the Texas Panhandle. We continued west and crossed I-27 somewhere between Lubbock and Amarillo.  Actually, it was just north of Plainview where Ed and his family lived for a number of years.

 

Then we got stuck in a small town somewhere in New Mexico. We needed to take a southerly "jog" to get on the road, so I had a choice of going due south and crossing the train tracks at the Pilot Travel Center, or going west on the "truck route." I chose unwisely--after a couple of miles going west, we had to turn south and cross the tracks there and, there, was the train. It came to a complete stop in front of us and then proceeded to back up for a short forever.  (Probably less than five minutes, but it seems longer when you're waiting.)

But the park wasn't far away. It had been cloudy for most of the drive and still cloudy when we arrived, so I hopefully assumed Mammoth Motorhome would cool down quickly. Alas, not to be. Molly and I went for a walk around the campground, and at some point I was feeling pleasantly "not hot" so I checked the temperature--

Ninety nine. Plus the clouds were rapidly disappearing and the full sun was beating down on poor Mammoth. Even later, at 5:22pm, it was still 89 degrees inside.

But the dogs were doing okay with that temperature, so we just had to be patient until sundown.

Oasis State Park appears to be brand-new and cute as a button. There is a rather large pond in the middle with a gravel walkway all around; picnic benches and shelters scattered here and there. The lake is stocked for catfishing and there were signs saying "no swimming", so I didn't let Molly go in. There was one duck and a whole lot of little fishes at the edges.

I thought the park would be a delight for bird and lizard watching because I saw a lizard first thing and Molly scared up a quail at the edge of our campsite. But it appears that's all there was, other than House Sparrows (hate them!), Western Kingbirds, Mourning Doves, and the eternal Mockingbird. Maybe we'll see something different in the morning.

 

We ate supper at this little steak place in town:

nice salad bar.

LATER: we did. I saw a horny toad during my next morning dog walk. Nice!

One other memorable thing was the smell--when a lightning show started and the wind came out of a certain direction, the manure smell was so prominent that I wondered if there were horse campers nearby. And the flies--oh, the flies! Probably the reason for the ridiculous profusion of western Kingbird was the abundance of flies.  The source of the smell, and flies, was revealed when we pulled out next morning. There was a stinking feedlot just south of us.

 

Oftentimes I really hate people who eat feedlot cattle. Don't they know?