Boondocking

Clicking the pics won't bring the birds back, only the winter will do that.

A very special place for the bird nerds. But I was there less than half an hour this morning because there was a severe lack of birds, so I didn't get much in the way of pictures.

I actually wrote this several days ago while I was boondocking on the beach and really and truly boondocking in the truest sense of the word, but I never got around to putting it on my blog. So now even though I'm boondocked in luxury at the Valley of Fire National Park I'm putting it out now because I didn't have time to write anything else today.

I believe to actually enjoy boondocking, instead of enduring it, requires some ingenuity, resourcefulness, mechanical abilities, patience, and no small amount of self-control, peace of mind, and a rather extensive toolkit. Of course, you don't have to have all of those attributes but the more of them you have, the better, and that applies especially to the toolkit.

Since boondockers don't necessarily have a home for the night waiting for them, they not only have to find a place to stay, but they also have to turn what they've found into a home.

Some boondocking spots may have trash to be picked up, rocks that need to be moved, and a leveling job far beyond the one or two plastic blocks under the tires that normal RVers whine about. And of course, the direction the camper is facing can be very important to your comfort, like for instance, aligning your solar panels with the sun or keeping the refrigerators outside bits in the shade; those things don't matter in most RV Parks; you just Park where and how you're told.

Some boondockers travel in groups, clubs, birds of a feather kind of thing, but most of the time, boondockers are found moving around by themselves or with a friend in another RV. Some very good things can be said about traveling with another RV, such as going to the store while someone stays behind keeping an eye on things. Or to have someone built-in that you can talk to, but I would think the appearance of increased safety by having a friend living next door would be the most appealing thing to many RVers.

Is boondocking so appealing that a lot of folks do it? Not on your life. It takes a certain kind of person to enjoy boondocking, especially long-term boondocking. And that certain kind of person is not a better person, a tougher person, or even a poorer person that can't afford an RV Park. It's just a person with a different idea about what constitutes the joy and freedom of full-time RVing.

 Most RVers boondock a little bit, maybe a few weeks a year total, and that's often because they don't have the necessary equipment to stay comfortable for more than a short stay. But, of course a short stay is the way boondocking is supposed to be for normal RVers; it's kind of an emergency thing that you do every once in a while, but your probably not going to be very comfortable while you're doing it. And I believe that discomfort and the lack of conveniences is the main reason more RVers don't spend much time boondocking.


I can see this post is getting waaay to long, so I will either end it here or write some more about boondocking tomorrow if I have the time.

Theboondork

I've seen so precious few flowers this spring, and just the time of year when I thought the West was going to be overflowing with blooms, maybe it is, but not where I'm at. These wildflowers are all I could find.

Mom, dad, and their two little gooselings.

Some kind of a duck.... They all look alike... Taking off

The "Flight Deck" at the Bosque Del Apache is kind of a special place. During the winter when the Snow Geese and the Sandhill Cranes are living at the Bosque by the thousands, a lot of the professional photographers want to be on the flight deck to get the best pictures. It's basically a wooden deck jutting out into the lake, and the pros want to be there especially during sunrise to get those incredible pictures of the Lift-Off, when 20,000 snow geese take off all at once

Needless to say I can't get anywhere near the flight deck on those winter sunrises, mostly because I don't have a camera lens that weighs as much as I do, and costs as much as my truck. But at least today I had it all to myself, without another person in sight..... Or a bird either.

This blue bellied Weedwacker shouldn't be at the Bosque this time of year. They all should be laying their eggs at the South Pole where they spend their summers.

Since Their diet consists mostly of snow and ice, they've also been known to enjoy a Polar Bear if they can hold it down long enough to eat it, but Polar Bears have been hunted to extinction in New Mexico so the birds diet is limited to snow and 7-Eleven slushys

There's not many blue bellied Weedwackers left. They only lay one egg a year and it's generally frozen, so the Female can't sit on it for very long without having to warm up, which usually involves flying to equatorial Africa for the weekend, and the male is too busy hunting polar bears to spend any time helping out.