Tuesday, 23 through Tuesday, 30 November 2021
Original plans
When I came here, I'd intended to stay only until after Thanksgiving. I made the reservation a couple of months ago to be sure I'd have a comfortable place to stay over the holiday, when campgrounds tend to fill up despite the seasonal weather. I planned to use this somewhat central location to visit the Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument, go down to see Deming and Las Cruces, and then finish the month in Lordsburg.
But a couple of things intervened to change those plans. First was the fact that I visited Las Cruces earlier than I'd planned and, while it seemed a nice place, I didn't feel the need to go back now.
I'd also wanted to go down to Deming, and from there down to the Mexican border to the Pancho Villa State Park. I was interested to see what the state of New Mexico had to say about him but found online that the park office has closed due to Covid. In trying to find out why the state was interested in this Mexican revolutionary, I found this website https://lflank.wordpress.com/when-pancho-villa-invaded-nm that gives a clear explanation of the Mexican revolution, which in turn explains how Pancho Villa became a household name in the US, and also explains why Columbus, NM, is home to a state park named for him: in 1916 he became the first foreigner to invade the US since the War of 1812. If we can ever get rid of this stupid virus, I'd like to visit there.
I really do regret not being able to get up to the Gila Cliff Dwellings. That was partly because I read online that the road up there isn't so great for my kind of vehicle, and partly because I kept being disoriented by the black stuff swirling around in my vision (see next section), and partly because I ended up having so much to do to catch up I didn't want to take a day to drive up there. But next time I'm in the area, definitely that's a place I want to go.
Anyway, the Silver City campground was comfortable, the wifi signal was strong, and I had so much to do before the end of the month that I decided to just stay here until I go to Arizona.
Health problems
The dizziness that'd been a problem for most of this month gradually disappeared, except for a mild recurrence now and then. But soon after we arrived here, I noticed a blind spot in the vision of my left eye. It was odd, almost like the fuzziness you see online when a person's face is being blocked out of a picture. Just to the left of center in my left eye, about a quarter of my field of vision was blocked.
After another day or so, that went away but another kind of vision block took its place. I guess it's what eye doctors call a floater, but in my experience those are usually fairly small and colorless, and they go away after a bit. This floater was big and black and never went away. It almost looked like a black lace curtain had dropped over the vision in my left eye, and the bottom of the curtain had a heavy black border that curved around, like the hem of a curtain when it moves around in a breeze. I could see normally below the black hem, and I could see a bit dimmer but mostly normally above it. But the black hem floats around as my eye moves around to focus on various things, so it keeps getting in the way and making it hard for me to see.
It was always there - morning or evening or in bed with my eyes closed; tired or rested; inside or out. When I can't see clearly, I can't think clearly, so this blockage started causing me trouble in doing any kind of thinking at all. I called to all the eye doctors in Silver City and all were booked until at least mid-December, especially for a new patient and a transient one at that. I finally decided to just make this a priority when I got to Arizona.
Gracie, too, started having a strange health problem. Actually, nothing seemed wrong with her except that she started collapsing now and then. I first noticed that she was stumbling for no reason when we were out for walks. We all stumble over the tiniest things - a little pebble can do it. But her stumbles became more frequent and seemed to involve her front legs actually giving way, rather than to the usual just losing her footing for a moment. Then I started to see her standing at her water dish and very slowly collapsing. Once I saw her collapse backwards with her rear legs giving way, and once I saw her collapse sideways with her left legs giving way. Slow-motion collapses for no reason at all that I could see.
I decided this might be a side effect of the stroke she had in May, but once again I couldn't find anybody to consult. All 3 of my critters are due for their annual shots in December, so I decided I'd consult whatever vet I could get an appointment with about Gracie's problem at the same time. Very worrying, though.
Thanksgiving
The weather wasn't great but we otherwise had a nice Thanksgiving. Of course I watched Schindler's List, my annual tradition. It always makes me feel so thankful for the fairly comfortable life I've been lucky enough to have.
And I tried a pork chop recipe I've been wanting to try for years, with a peach-dijon sauce. And with mashed potatoes and green beans, it was really good.
I've been trying since I moved into the RV to figure out a way of making a microwave approximation of my momma's coffee cake. She always made it on Christmas morning, but when I've tried it the past couple of Christmases, it's been less than a success. But I thought I might have figured out how to make it work and decided to try it today before making it for David and Anna when we all get together in Tucson at Christmas. In the past, I'd just been cooking it too long and the bottom of it got hard as a rock. Today it was almost perfect. For Christmas I'll cut another 30 seconds off the cooking time and that should get it. Huzzah!
I also made something called Raspberry Ganache Pie, which was so easy and so good I'll make it again before next Thanksgiving. I found the recipe on a box of baking chocolate, so of course it calls for 2 packages of the semi-sweet chocolate, melted with a cup of whipping cream and beaten with a whisk until it's smooth, then stir in a couple tablespoons of raspberry jam and pour all that into a chocolate crumb crust and put in the frig for 4 hours. Then cover the top with 2 cups of fresh raspberries, and cover all that with a glaze of 4 tablespoons of the jam and 1 T of water that were stirred together and microwaved until the jam had melted. Really rich so just a small slice was plenty. Actually, after the coffee cake for breakfast and the feast for dinner, I decided to save it for the next day. And the next and the next. It was really good while it lasted.
In the campground
Mostly I spent the week here catching up my blog - I wrote 15 posts, all the way up to this one - and walking the dogs 4 or 5 times a day.
They have a decent-size dog park at this KOA, so we went there once a day. Dexter managed to make a couple of friends, which I know you might not have thought he was capable of, but it just has to be done on his terms. When he's able to meet a dog through the fence first, he's able to establish friendly relations with them while it's safe. Then when the dog's brought into the park, Dexter's always fine with it. I've seen this process work with 2 dogs at once, though I think more than 2 would be pushing it.
This is southwestern NM, and the cactus in the park reminded me of this.
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| This is what a whole plant looks like, but it's not clear from this distance how lethal this plant is. That's Gracie's head at the bottom. |
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| This close-up makes it a lot easier to see how truly dangerous this plant is. But pretty. Yellow flowers in November. |
Because there was a national holiday stretched across much of the time I was here, there were lots of families and lots of kids. There seemed to be a pack of them that were always together and - as kids do - were in and out of everywhere. Once I was doing laundry, and the pack of kids came through the room from the campground office to the outside, and I heard the oldest, a girl of about 11, say to the others, "And exactly why is it we think this is a good idea?" I didn't hear the answer or see what it is they were going to do, but I'm still curious what it was.
This campground had a decent playground set up including a special slide.
In case it's not clear this is a (pretend) dump truck, here's another view.
On our early walk one morning we heard a large pack of coyotes carrying on. Dexter decided whatever they were saying was worth barking at and I had a hard time getting him to stop. That same day I could smell a skunk nearby, though fortunately we didn't run across it while we were out.
Not far from the office was a medium-size pond with a bunch of geese or Muscovy ducks or something in there. They always seemed to be there, but I don't know if they were residents or had just stopped by for the winter.
Trips to Silver City
I finally managed to stay in one place long enough to get an appointment for the Covid booster shot. A relief to get that taken care of.
While I was in town, I stopped by a tire shop to be sure mine were all still okay. With winter coming, I wanted someone knowledgeable to tell me they were safe. They told me they were definitely safe but had to add a bunch of air to several of them. I've learned to trust the guys at the various tire shops I've stopped at here and there. They all seem to know what they're doing and most are able to do it efficiently (some are better at dealing with my hubcaps than others). Tires are expensive, but I'm usually open to the idea that it's time for me to get new ones, given the amount of time I spend on them. But I've never had anyone try to sell me new tires when I didn't think they should have been.
On another trip into town, we had to pull off the road to let 14 police cars (by actual count) and a hearse go by. I came across them again in town as they passed by the fire station where a huge US flag was stretched across the street, being held up by 2 ladder trucks, one from Silver City and the other from nearby Fort Bayard. I saw a fire officer in uniform crossing the park across the street where I happened to be walking the dogs, so I asked what it was all about. He said they were honoring a state senator from this district who had died. Quite a send-off.
That park took up a city block and had lots of trees and a small basketball court and some picnic tables and so forth. But mostly it was grass and for some reason we didn't see many other dogs in the 3 times we went there. So it was good place for me to walk mine.
This seemed to be a nice town. One person told me people were moving here because they have "4 gentle seasons" of weather. I guess it's all relative, and relative to the weather in the northern part of the state, maybe so. But despite having about 9,500 residents, this place strikes me as being fairly rural in character. I saw several Alaska license plates while I was here, and Silver City seemed like the kind of place that someone coming south from Alaska might be comfortable in. It was a little too rural for me, but I could see the attraction. Despite all the cactus, there were a lot of beautiful trees and mountains.
And after a week spent here of resting and regrouping, we were able to head on to Arizona, not just to see the state but also to see the doctors in the state. But I hadn't made reservations past the first 3 nights in Benson, so I could be flexible in where to look for medical help.
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