Final photos from Elephant Butte Lake State Park

Katie and I are leaving Elephant Butte Lake State Park this morning and heading toward Leasburg Dam SP.  Final destination:  Quartzsite - of course!  Here are some photos I've taken while here in a couple of different camping locations at Elephant Butte:

One of my favorite birds - Snowy Egret.  I love the bright yellow feet and fluffy feathers.

We finally met up with Chris and Edna again - Katie and I met them two years ago and we were both happy to see them again.  Katie and Edna get along really well.  Katie actually played with Edna on our first walk together.

Chris took this photo yesterday - Edna and Katie together:

Following are some photos Chris said I could snag from her FB page.  Thanks Chris!

Carol, Holly, Me, Roxi and Nancy:

Walking with Holly, Nancy, Me and Jeanne and of course the doggies, Edna, Katie and Riley:

Holly, Nancy, Me, Jeanne and Carol:

I finally saw some Sandhill Cranes.  There are a lot of them here at Elephant Butte, but I didn't see them up close.  This is as good as it got for now:

Blurry, but you can see them better in this closeup:

This is a pretty bug I had to snap.  No idea what it is:

Group sex.  Embarrassing, I know, but it is what it is:

I thought their mating was interesting - here's one pair up close.  Maybe I should have blacked out their faces:

A lizard- I love taking photos of lizards - look at his weird back feet/toes:

Here's our final campsite at South Montecello Campground - beautiful campground.  Big sites, level, many sites have views of the lake.  We can see the lake out the dinette window:

We've had some beautiful sunsets here.  It's raining right now, with thunder and lightning, and a little hail.  Dark and cloudy.  I love the different weather we get in New Mexico - keeps it interesting.

This morning under a rainbow:

I have a bunch of photos of Katie that I'll post next time.  She's happy as a clam here.  Lots of doggie friends.  She's seen Riley, Edna and Jake in the last few days and I love that she is so social now.

We've had a lot of fun visiting and walking with our friends here - Chris, Jeanne, Nancy, Roxie and a short visit with Annie, and meeting two new friends, Holly and Carol!  See you all down the road. 

From me and Katie, have a great Sunday, everyone!  :)

Wordless Wednesday

This is interesting - a tree is growing through a speed limit sign:

From me and Katie, have a great Wednesday, everyone!!!  :)

Back to Elephant Butte - Goatheads, Squirrels, Boxers and Roadrunners

We've moved a little bit in the last week or so.  We were at Caballo Lake, up in the parking area overlooking the lake for one night, then moved to Riverside Campground, just down the road.  I really like parking up there, and every time I do I love it until we take our first walk around the area.  Here's why we don't last long up there:

Goathead stickers.  This is my shoe after a short potty walk with Katie.  If we take a longer walk, the bottom of my shoes are covered.  You can imagine Katie trying to walk on these things.  I always forget, then the next day we usually move down to Riverside Campground along the Rio Grande.

We were the only campers in the Riverside Campground along the primitive area.  We had camped here in the spring, and I chose a large site that I had last time.  Right on the Rio Grande.  The developed sites in the campground have TONS of squirrels, so I don't park in the regular campground any more, but this area along the lake didn't have squirrels in the spring.  WELL...   this time, they were all over the place.  Here's our campsite - that's the river behind the trees:

It's just beautiful there.  When we went to bed, it was warm, so I opened the window in the overcab bunk.  I could smell the damp fields right across the road from our site.  It smelled so good.  I was happy to be there - and no goat heads.

We went to bed that night, and the next morning we had a whole crowd of squirrels.  They had built a huge hole in the ground 20 or 30 feet from The Palms during the night.  When I first went outside in the morning and saw this huge hole, I couldn't imagine what had built it.  Something big, for sure.

Here's Katie next to the hole, sniffing the dirt - she could have fit in the hole:

A bit later, here come the squirrels.  I don't know if they are the critters who dug the hole, but they were going in and out of it, and there was another smaller opening across from the big hole.  The squirrels were coming in and out of both and seemed very comfortable:

I was afraid of having a hoard of squirrels popping in and out of that tunnel and running all over the place near The Palms, and I was also feeling a little isolated, so I decided maybe we'd better head back to Elephant Butte, and we did.  We'll be back - but maybe further down toward the end there won't be as many squirrels, and hopefully there will be more RVers in that area.

We were extremely lucky to drive in on a Saturday morning and snag a non-electric campsite.  Someone must have just left - SCORE!   And so here we are, settled in for a bit.

We had a visitor yesterday - I don't know if he's a stray dog, or a pet who is off the leash, but he was back again today, walking through the campsite, and visiting our neighbor, Ellie and her son, Justice, who are next door.  I thought he was a Pitt Bull, but Justice said he's a Boxer. He is a beautiful dog.  I put out some food, he seemed so needy, and then gave him a treat, but I kept away from him, just in case.  As much as I hate people leaving their dogs off leash, I'm hoping he does have a home. He keeps going back up to the spot where we were on the little loop over the lake, so maybe one of those campers owns him.  And here he comes:

Eating a little of Katie's food - he finished the bowl and then had some water from the other bowl.  They are paper bowls, and I was surprised he didn't knock them over:

Yum - thanks, Katie!

See ya next time!

And away he went.  He seems like a sweet dog, I hope he's okay.  Katie was keeping a close watch on him.

I mentioned in the last post I'd tell you about my close encounter with a Roadrunner.  It was the best.  Short, but very sweet.  I was in the first campsite here at Elephant Butte, along the loop overlooking the lake.  I noticed the heron down by the water and went outside to snap some photos.  I was standing there, watching the bird through the close-up lens of the camera when I heard a weird noise.  It was kind of a double sound - a chirping and gurgling at the same time.  Weird.  I thought it was one of the weird insects that fly around making weird noises.

It kept making that sound, but it wasn't flying away, so I lowered the camera and glanced to my right, and there - right there - was a Roadrunner looking up at me.  A big guy, looking right at me.  I think I was in his way, blocking his path to get down the hill to the lake.  Up close and personal - he looked very soft and fluffy.

Here he comes:

Rushing by:

Heading past me on his way to the lake.  That was a pretty cool few minutes.  I've never been that close to a Roadrunner before.

WELCOME to our newest Follower, Leslie Alpen!  Hi, Leslie - thanks for following along with me and Katie.  I don't see any info about you, but if you have a blog, please let me know, and I'll share the link.  Welcome aboard!  :)

From me and Katie, have a great Wednesday, everyone!

2 mice! FotoSketcher results. And...Great Osprey/fish photos!

Yesterday morning I noticed two empty non-electric campsites that I could see from my perch over the lake, and since I was worried about mice, I decided to move.  I got everything together and lastly, picked up the rug runner I had outside in Katie’s fenced area.  The wind had bunched it up, and when I shook it out to fold it, out popped a little fat mouse.  Another of those EEEEKKKK moments from me and from the critter.   He took off and ran away, and I thought, okay, that was the mouse.  Then I opened the hood of the truck engine, and there was a little fat dead mouse in one of my traps.  So we had TWO mice in the vicinity.  I was happy to move on.

So I drove down to the road, turned left, and saw that both of the sites had already gotten occupants.  Rats!!!  There are only seven dry campsites with a shelter, which I wanted, and two are for tenters only - impossible to get level in those - so it's hard to get a regular non-elec site here, unless you're willing to get creative or park in the sand by the lake.  I'm a little afraid to do that, although tons of RV are next to the lake every weekend. 

I feel better going to town or leaving the campsite to dump the tanks when I have a shelter and can leave out chairs, etc. so show it’s an "occupied site."  I wasn’t comfortable leaving our stuff in the “side of the road” site we were in.  So, all packed up and ready to go, I decided to head toward Wal-Mart.  Once the shopping was done, I decided that since I had less than a week to go at Elephant Butte Lake, I'd just head on down to Caballo Lake State Park.

We arrived about 5ish and – as I usually do – I just headed for the boat ramp area and parked above the lake in the parking lot.  There’s nobody else here, so it’s nice and quiet and we again have a beautiful view.

There are multiple campgrounds in this state park, so we’ll probably be here a day or so and then move to a more “designated” campground, Riverside, where there are lots of elec and non-elec sites.  It's along the Rio Grande and a pretty area.  I've had problems there with mice and squirrels getting into the rig and engine, but down along the river at the end of the park, I've been okay so far.  I'll probably head there.

Since my last post I downloaded FotoSketcher, a free painting program for PCs.  So far I really like it.  I don’t know how it compares to Apple’s Waterlogue, but so far I’m enjoying it, and I just started.   I did a little research and found “Tips” and a full Tutorial for the program.  I haven't checked them out yet, but will today to see what I can do to change and enhance my “digital paintings.” 

Here are four samples, the first is my original photo, the second is a watercolor, next a color pencil sketch, and the fourth filter is called emergence.

 

 

Pretty cool, huh?  I like the different versions of this Great White Egret that I snapped at Santee Lakes RV Park a few years ago.

Here’s a couple more of my first attempts.  This watercolor was done from a photo I took on my condo patio:

This was done from a photo of cactus flowers at one of the state parks here in New Mexico:

I love photos of doors - this was a door that I copied from somewhere on-line:

Here's my roadrunner from the other day:

And this is an older photo that I've always liked - I think from Quartzsite - done as a watercolor on textured paper:

So, those are just some quick examples of what I did with no tutorial or tips, just playing around.  Imagine what I could do after I read through those.  I’ll let you know…

I have to show you photos of an Osprey I took a couple of days ago.  I was talking to my neighbors, Carol and Chuck, who are avid birders, and they told me about an Osprey that flew right over their heads with a big fish in it's mouth.  I was wishing I had seen it!  So, I walked on and saw an Osprey again on top of a pole.  Even though I had already taken photos of this exact situation, I couldn't resist snapping a few more pictures.  When I pulled them up on the computer, here's what I saw:

This must have been the same bird.  He just sat there holding onto his fish, looking back and forth, guarding it.

I love the way he's got the fish secured with his claws - showing the face with it's eyes, gills, and open mouth.  How lucky was this shot!?!

"Yeah, and you stay back - this is MY fish!"

I was so excited when I saw the detail in these pictures.  :)

Okay, enough photos for today.  I'm accumulating a bunch again, so hopefully I'll be posting more.  I have a few more from Elephant Butte, too.  I had an up close and personal experience with a Roadrunner yesterday.  I'll tell you about it next time.

From me and Katie, have a great Friday, everyone!  :)