theboondork's RV blog

I enjoy being at Ben Avery, just not as much as before

3/13/2024

Click the pics.

Boondocking area at the Ben Avery gun range.

I walked around the campground for some time, and that was virtually all I did unless you count playing on the Internet as actually "doing something." I'm going to Walmart tomorrow, which will get me out of the house for a while.

Being at Ben Avery gun range is a mixed blessing for me. On the one hand, I feel very relaxed and safe here, which for some people, that's probably hard to understand, considering I'm surrounded by guns, because everyone here is armed. But that's no different than how I grew up in my neighborhoods as a kid. Everyone I knew had a gun. My friends and I all had guns by the time we were 13, and I felt perfectly safe back then, so to me, it's no different now.

On the other hand, since I've been here at Ben Avery so many times over the last twenty years, there's not much new going on that interests me. Especially since I've had to put an end to my various firearms hobbies—buying and selling, keeping and collecting firearms I've had to force myself to no longer be interested in them, which means that Ben Avery doesn't interest me as much as it used to.

Now, I still have a lot of good memories staying here, but all the folks I meet as I walk around, especially in the campground, have guns as their hobby, so that's mostly what they talk about. They're not RVers; their RV is simply a way of going places to enjoy their gun hobby...And I can relate to that.

Fortunately, I still have enough knowledge of guns and reloading to be able to hold up my end of any gun conversation. Still, I'm much more interested in a lithium battery than a .44 Magnum now days.

Ben Avery gun range.

Balloons lifting off this morning.

Yeah, I know the pictures are getting boring, there even boring to me. tomorrow morning I'm going to try to go to a nearby outdoor museum and see if I can find an interesting picture to take.

6 Comments

OFM

3/14/2024 09:45:41 am

At 16.5 years of full time rving I also have reached a point where lots of neat places are not so inviting as they used to be. I know New Mexico has lots of boondocking areas that are not part of the state parks system but I cannot recall how to find them. The area I do remember is the Rob Jagger free camping area near Capitan. Good luck.

Tom

3/14/2024 10:34:07 am

I've never had to pay attention to the boondocking availability in New Mexico since I've always bought their nonresident annual pass that gave me free boondocking at all of the state parks, and there's enough state parks in New Mexico that I always had a new place to stay if I wanted.

But times have changed and I will have to look at New Mexico through new eyes and locate a few places that I've never actually needed before, but I assume other annual pass users will also be looking for other places to camp so what spaces there are might get kind of crowded.

I've always felt that whatever good things we baby-boomers find will always end up going away, maybe it's done to take advantage of us, or maybe our great numbers inundate the system and it has to change. But whatever it is it never seems to work in our favor even when it looks like it does.

My free national parks pass is a good example. The closest National Park to me is Rocky Mount National Park, and the government has made the Park so difficult to use with a reservation system just to get in the gate I have no desire to go there anymore.... Too many people they say.

So I'll either figure out a new way to use New Mexico, or abandon the entire state. But I sure would hate to lose the good times and good memories I've had at the Bosque Del Apache taking pictures of the Sandhill cranes.

Tom

KennyD

3/14/2024 10:41:01 am

Consider yourself lucky to be at such a great place as Ben Avery. No such place here in the once great state of California, that's for sure.

3/14/2024 11:11:57 am

I couldn't care less about what goes on in New York, and Chicago but what happened to California is a crying shame.

I used to go there, I've been to Disneyland, and Redwood national Park, I've walked around Los Angeles, and since I was discharged from the Air Force at Travis Air Force Base near San Francisco I've even walked around San Fran.... But no more. What liberalism has done to that State makes my heart break, and the speed in which great world-famous cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco, have turned into cesspools has boggled my mind. And I'm very worried that a few more years of heading in our current political direction there will be nothing left to save.

Tom

3/15/2024 12:33:10 pm

We are closely following the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. Whoever writes about the fall of America will start with FDR and the rise of the liberal democrats. A classic case of death from within.

3/15/2024 01:34:12 pm

It looks like they were smart enough to know the only way we could be defeated was from within. I think it's the speed at which they were able to turn ordinary Americans against their own country that surprises me the most. Their ability to turn good into bad and bad into good happened quicker than I would ever have imagined.

Tom

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.

I enjoy being at Ben Avery, just not as much as before

Leave a Reply.

Archives

CONTACT THEBOONDORK