Bosque Del Apache

Clicking the pics might make you want to migrate.

This is the often mentioned, and extremely prestigious, "Flight Deck" where the best professional photographers in the world stand to get the  pictures of the Sandhill Cranes and Snow Geese during the Winter that sells for big bucks. But this time of year there's very few professional photographers in the area since most of the birds haven't yet arrived.

So during this off-season even I, carrying my pitiful camera, with an embarrassing lens, is able to walk up on the flight deck without being tossed overboard  by 20 or 30 enraged Pro photographers after being beaten mercilessly with several $40,000 Canon camera lenses... Ahh, those were the good old days, I got to be close to some of the world's best photographers... before I hit the water.

The folks you see there now are amateurs like myself who are happy just to stand briefly on the flight deck where once stood some of the best wildlife photographers in the world... And NO, standing there didn't make my pictures any better.

Another day of running around the Bosque Del Apache taking a few pictures, and just enjoying myself. The weather's been warm in the daytime and in the high 30s at night, so its perfectly warm in the daytime to do whatever I would like, and chilly enough at night for a good nights sleep... Life is good.

It's supposed to be dark enough here at night to see the Milky Way, but the moon is almost full and that really brightens up the sky so I haven't been able see or take a picture of the Milky Way.

I stopped at the Walmart in Socorro on the way here so I have enough supplies to last me since there's no grocery stores in the area. In fact other than a restaurant or two I don't think there's much of anything in the area. The town of Socorro, and shopping is only about 20 miles away, so I won't starve. My biggest problem is finding a place to put extra food. There's just not much storage in the Lance, so I have to be careful about how much stuff I can buy.

I noticed leaving Las Vegas New Mexico yesterday morning, that diesel fuel at the station that I filled up at when I got there, was four cents cheaper than when I bought it before. I'm taking that as a bit of good news because I'm hoping that if diesel starts to run out the prices will start rising and maybe I will have to head back to Denver if that happens. I would sure hate to be stuck in some little town, like here in San Antonio, New Mexico not knowing when or if they would ever get diesel fuel again.

I had an epiphany last night while looking at the pictures I just took today.... But fortunately I made it to the bathroom in time. But after that, I realized that most of my pictures looked the same! It was picture after picture of the Sandhill Cranes doing something which wasn't very interesting, even to me.

So taking some pictures this morning, instead of snapping everything that moved, I tried to wait until the light was better, or the birds were doing something more interesting than just standing there, although I still have pictures of birds just standing there, because frankly, that's about all they do most of the time.