theboondork's RV blog

Geezer hour

11/17/2020

Contrary to what's being reported, clicking the pics does NOT spread the Bat flu, so DO NOT wash your mouse.

This clock in the town plaza has the date the town was founded written at the top, and it says 1598 ! Now that's old. In fact it's so old I think Barney the old fat man is the only one that could remember what New Mexico was like back then. I look around at how bleak and desolate New Mexico is right now and can't imagine how empty and isolated it must've been when the Spanish were running around here in 1598.

Before dawn this morning, I got out of bed not to visit the Bosque Del Apache but to get to Walmart for the Geezer hour. The Geezer hour is only for one day a week now, and it just so happened it's on Tuesday.

I've been going to Walmart whenever I feel like it all Summer, but out of extreme caution, I think I will start staying away from people again like I did last Spring. I'm not going to be a total recluse; I'm just going to try to be around as few people as possible. It might not help, but on the other hand, I enjoy being a loner, so it's not going to hurt.

I've got a feeling that there might be another food shortage coming up, which is one of the reasons I wanted to avoid the crowds and take my time shopping at Walmart this morning. I don't know if I'm right, but I had the same feeling last winter while I was in Arizona, and I got stocked up a couple of weeks before everybody cleaned out the store shelves.

Biden has promised to lock down the country for some indeterminate amount of time, and as soon as the American people realize he might be serious, I think there will be a run on food worse than the first time.

For anyone that may be interested. The Walmart in Socorro had four RVs and half a dozen semi's that appear to have spent the night in the parking lot.

Leaving Walmart, I drove over to the old part of Socorro and took a few pictures. For a town this old, not many historic buildings are still around; I'm not sure why. It was still kind of dark with the sun just coming up, so there were hardly any cars around, which is just the way I like it. I can Park anywhere I want and walk around and take pictures.

theboondork

Some of the businesses that surround the Plaza.

The town plaza. Back in the day Spanish towns were built around the Plaza.

Socorro New Mexico early morning Picture

This building looks old but I don't know if it is or not, I'm not a historian, just a taker of random snapshots.

Old buildings Socorro New Mexico and Picture

Old buildings that are built around the Plaza.

This giant circle thingy must represent the history of Socorro. I'm assuming that because it has a Conquistador on it. And this town is old enough to have had Conquistadors drinking tequila at the local saloon, and shopping at Walmart.

10 Comments

Glen Johnson

11/17/2020 06:00:42 pm

The Sorocco town Plaza looks similar to the plaza in Las Vegas, NM we visited a few years back. The visit was because my wife found there was a quilt shop there. She missed very few on our drive to Alaska and the three months circling the US.

Tom

11/17/2020 07:46:55 pm

I think Las Vegas New Mexico has one of the prettier town plazas that I've seen. Almost all the buildings there look original and well-kept. Thats usually a sign a town has enough money to take care of their old buildings.

It's good to have a hobby. Especially one that works well while traveling. I know quilting takes a lot of skill and a lot of patience. And can be very relaxing as long as your eyes and fingers keep working like they should.

Tom

11/17/2020 10:28:33 pm

It is relaxing during long waits in the truck.

11/18/2020 07:12:57 am

Yeah, any married guy can relate to that. I've spent many an hour sitting in a vehicle waiting for my wife to try on 57 pairs of shoes.

Tom

Judith

11/17/2020 08:25:13 pm

Ah. Thanks for the photos of downtown. It looks nice to me. Certainly not a colonial spanish town but good enough, certainly old enough to please me...I wonder if it is hanging on. I hope so. And by the way, Biden, as far as I can tell, has no plans to lock down the country. Where did you learn that? I did see that hot spots would probably need to be. Where did you read that about the whole country? Well, no matter. We may have different news sources. What's important is appreciating what we see and experience, and you do a good job of conveying that. Very superior photos and some good narrative to go along. Hope you are enjoying your perch that is not a walmart lot.

11/17/2020 08:45:27 pm

Yeah I don't know how a town in the West could be much older than that. I know St. Augustine Florida, which used to be one of my favorite towns, was founded in the middle 1500s. But that's kind of understandable since people were sailing all over the place in those days and St. Augustine is right on the coast. But they had to walk to Socorro New Mexico which must mean they REALLY wanted to get here.

There's several places that are talking about what Joe Biden will do, and remember he was very specific when he said he's going to listen to the experts.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/11/biden-covid-advisor-says-us-lockdown-of-4-to-6-weeks-could-control-pandemic-and-revive-economy.html

https://www.newsweek.com/coronavirus-us-national-lockdown-joe-biden-covid-19-plan-strategy-1546581

As always, thank you very much for the compliments. I appreciate hearing from you and everyone else, it lets me know how I'm doing, and gives me incentive to write a blog post even when I have nothing to say, which is more common than you might think.

Tom

11/18/2020 08:23:42 pm

OK. I looked up the sites you mentioned. Glad to see it and learn. I've been tuning out a lot on the news lately.....just skimming the headlines. I guess I could have sent you some stuff, but geez. I'm tired. But thank you for having the energy!!

11/19/2020 05:33:16 am

I don't pay much attention to the news nowadays much either. There's nothing I can do about anything, and it's mostly bad news that just makes me feel like everything is falling apart. It's always been that way but it was easier for me to deal with when I was younger. But now I'm old enough to remember all of the impending disasters that were headed our way if we didn't drastically change our lives.

How many can you remember? I remember in no particular order, the world was headed for nuclear destruction. The population bomb! We were over populating the world and we were all going to starve in 20 years. The hole in the ozone was going to kill everybody in the world in a couple of decades. And who can forget the rapidly approaching Ice Age, when scientists agreed that the polar ice caps were growing at a rate that would cause crops to stop growing, and all of us to freeze to death quicker than they thought possible. And of course the ever popular Al Gore saying that because of global warming coastal cities were going to be underwater in 20 years.

There was actually a couple more looming disasters but at the moment I can't recall what they were. But whatever they were they always contained the same elements, the world was going to end in less the government took more of our money and more of our freedoms away. That always seems to be the answer to every problem.

Well I'm on my way to Arizona at the moment and I will respond to your other comment as soon as I get to my destination.

Tom

Leo Porter

11/18/2020 06:47:18 am

Did you get your gray water drain fixed?

11/18/2020 07:30:22 am

Actually I haven't checked it out yet. This campsite I'm staying in at the moment doesn't have sewer hookups, just water and electric and I need to be hooked up before I start messing with it.

I probably won't dump my tanks when I leave here because there's not much in any of them. So I'll probably wait until I get to the Lost Dutchman state Park near Phoenix before I dig into the problem.

There wasn't much in my kitchen gray water tank, which is the valve that's not working, so to keep it that way I'm doing my dishes in the bathroom sink. Which is not as bad as it sounds because I don't really cook, I just warm things up, so I have very few things to wash up. Which is one of the secrets to being able to boondock long term, paper plates, and wiping out pots and pans not washing them.

I know that may sound weird but my mom used cast-iron pots and pans her whole life and they were always wiped out, never washed that I can remember. Of course my pots and pans aren't cast-iron but the concept is the same.

Tom

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Geezer hour

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