Boats

There's three very good reasons to click the pics, how many can you name?..... none? That's what I thought.

Full moon setting over the Elephant Butte sailboat storage area.

Since toting around a sailboat on a trailer is a major pain, a lot of folks decide to just store them here next to the lake to avoid a long drive.

Another peaceful day at the Elephant. This boondocking area I'm at right now, is one I'm really starting to like. Even though it's basically a giant parking lot it has some nice views of different things so the fact that it's a parking lot doesn't bother me in the least. In fact the open nature of the area has the benefit of giving me plenty of sunshine for my solar panels.

Not only that but it's a parking lot that's hardly ever used. Even during the holiday crowd that was here last weekend, I only saw two RVs boondocked here, and normally I'm the only one.

But the biggest benefit to me is it's only a five minute walk to the beach, or the marina, and the marina is where the action is at the Elephant, with various types and sizes of boats coming and going all day. Since I spent all of my teenage years in Miami Florida, where we usually had a boat of some type, but being a military family we were kind of poor, and didn't have much of an income to spend on boats, so the ones we had were in poor shape with lots of repairs, and the only time any of our boats were in no danger of sinking is when they were  parked in the yard.

And speaking of boats, the high point of my year back then was always the Miami boat show. The boat show was usually held, back in the day, at either Miami Bayfront Park or Coconut Grove Marina, now days it's called the Miami International Boat Show and it's so big the venues are scattered all over Miami, since no one place can hold it all. Of course as a kid I just went to the Miami Boat Show to dream, and drool, since I had about as much chance of owning a nice boat as I did of flapping my arms and flying up the inter-coastal waterway.

But that was a long, long, time ago and the desire to own a boat anymore has not just waned, but has disappeared to the point I have as much desire to own a boat as I do to get a job. But I do have a long history with boats, and they still hold a certain fascination for me, so I enjoy seeing them, and taking pictures, but the obsession to own one is a flickering flame long since extinguished.

Theboondork

Yes it's a giant parking lot, but that's okay. I seldom have a neighbor, I have plenty of room to spread out, and I don't have to worry about somebody taking my spot when I go to town.

This guy has the perfect vehicle for pulling his boat around in the sand, and being able to launch from the beach. He can also get his class "A" out of any sandy predicament it may get into.

Bouncing away on a jet ski.
Half the people here love um, and the other half wants to kill that half.

I don't like jet skis, but it does make me happy seeing a family having a good time with the kids on one.