2009 August

Near Brazos, NM

We’ve looked down from the main dam at Heron Lake before, but the fresh perspective from the Rio Chama trailhead brings us face to face with our erroneous mental map of this place. We had pictured Heron Lake and the nearby El Vado (The Ford) Lake as two back-to-back reservoirs on the Chama River. But now we are looking down into the Chama River valley from below Heron Lake, and just above the dam spillway that simply adds to the river. We realize we crossed the Chama on our way in, a scrawny New Mexico river at best in August, and it clearly flows right past Heron Lake. So where does the water we’ve been swimming in come from?

We try out one of the camping areas closer to the road this time, Piedra (Rock) Cove. Balloons at the entry announce the wedding of Juan y Mari, and the ceremony is underway when we arrive. The bride and groom are standing by the water, all in white. Thankfully no one takes notice of our noisy rig coming in and getting settled. When we look back the bride and groom are in the water, splashing the rest of the wedding party. One, the best man perhaps, is held face down in the water by the groom until we start to wonder if we are witnessing a dark side of their ritual. But soon everyone is laughing again. They turn out to be good neighbors for the weekend, always having fun swimming, singing, yelling back and forth in English and Spanish, or throwing water baloons, but never being especially noisy. No generators or stereos at this wedding.

On Sunday I hike the Rio Chama trail to El Vado, and verify that it is indeed on the Chama River. It’s not a “no wake” lake like Heron, and buzzes with motorboats. I get a few angles on the Heron spillway, which seems to double the volume of the Chama and change the color of the water from a clear dark green to cloudy turquoise.

It turns out that Heron Lake it not what it seems. Wikipedia reveals that lake’s namesake is not a bird, but the water engineer Kenneth Heron whose vision to divert water under the continental divide to northern New Mexico was realized with the construction of several diversion tunnels from the upper San Juan river in the 1960’s, including the 12.8-mile Azotea Tunnel that feeds Heron Lake. The tunnel took six and a half years to build. Most of the water goes to the thirsty city of Albuquerque.

GPX Viewer Track Map and Graphs

This site houses a database of academic centers, businesses, foundations and non-profit organizations engaged in global development. Each member can list all the countries they are active in around the world. The former site had no map interface to this extensive data. The focus on country data lead me to choose the Google Visualization API Geomap rather than my Geo Mashup plugin for the interface. The result is a near perfect way to present their members’ global influence and query the directory.

In addition to the maps, I implemented the member submission and editing forms. I considered using a plugin like TDO Mini Forms, but in the end I needed more fine control than the plugins offered, and wrote the forms as WordPress templates. This allowed me to do things like generate checkbox collections from the category tree.

I’m usually disappointed in child fantasy movies as an adult because at some point they stop observing the reasons for child fantasies and just churn through a simple plot with lots of pretty colors (the stop-motion animation in this film is really cool). This movie got our hopes up in the first half, but fell into the usual end game. The only example I can think of that maintained a really interesting perspective all the way through is Pan’s Laybryinth, which I don’t think I could even watch again because of the gut-wrenching gore – an indication that it was a child fantasy movie for only adults. I can’t think of anything that tops Alice in Wonderland for both kids and adults.

Near Heron Lake State Park, NM

Ann has been wanting to go to Heron Lake forever, but I always drag my feet because I’m uncomfortable with water-oriented activities. I wish I knew what my problem is – I can swim and usually have fun once I get started, and water activities are usually in great outdoor places, just like climbing! Heron lake is definitely one such place, with amazing views of the Brazos Cliffs to the northeast. We fill up our inner tubes and I verify for myself and Ann that I can still swim. We spend a blissful night catching up on our sleep. We go on a meandering walk, and then a more ambitious swim, which verifies for me that I can swim, just not well. I need the tube to catch my breath every minute or so. Ann is able to swim without the tube most of the way back – which seems totally impossible to me.

We leave before heavy rain in fear of mud, but wish we had stayed to spend another quiet night. Driving Monday morning can’t be any worse than Sunday evening, right?

Our meander (I wish I could map the swim!):

GPX Viewer Track Map and Graphs

No, it’s not the weird transformer thing, but another recumbent much like my old one. Like a puppy to replace the old, tired dog. The old bike still works, just barely, with everything on it just about done for. I’ve gone through too many generations of bike computers to track the mileage, but I guess the Self-Propelled Lazyboy carried me about 30,000 miles including my 13,400-mile perimeter tour.

Our neighbor Phil took pity on the SPL and carried it away to the old bike’s home.

At some point we watched this, and I guess I didn’t review it, so we got it again. We start watching it, immediately recognize it, and can’t stop. It’s ingenious in such a wierd way that you can’t help but look. And keep looking. Back and forth. And now I’m cracking up.

Near Cleveland, NM

It’s time for some more leisurely backpacking! We hit the Jack’s Creek trailhead around 10:30am, and it’s busy. We’re the first to have to park in the weeds. On the trail, we meet hikers and equestrians enjoying the nice weather. It looks like it could storm, but after just a few drops it clears up again. I had hoped for an array of strange mushrooms to look at, like the last time I was here, but they aren’t out now. Still, it’s a blissful outing – no mosquitos, a break for hot tea at Pecos Baldy Lake, and we still have time to climb up to the summit of East Pecos Baldy.

The luxuries continue with hot coffee in the morning while we watch a herd of fifty or so bighorn sheep file up the draw behind the lake. They make a strange noise, a little like pronghorn antelope, kind of a buzz like a hummingbird flying by. We make a long, vegetated descent to the Pecos River, then climb back over the ridge to the trailhead in more fine weather. My only mistake of the trip is that I didn’t bring enough food! I realize I really was sick on much of the CDT hike, and not eating nearly as much as I normally would.

GPX Viewer Track Map and Graphs

An aging professor of mathematics has suffered an accident that left him with only 80 minutes of short-term memory, and most housekeepers are not up to the challenge of caring for him. It’s a good setup that uses the professor’s memory limitation to explore the importance of history in relationships. It also gently plies the romance of mathematics, which fortunately I find I can translate to a version that still holds sway with me. A few number problems are woven into the story with great skill from the housekeeper’s perspective, so that I imagine even mathophobes might enjoy them. The professor is mostly interested in whole numbers, which serve as good metaphors for individual people.

Near Island Park, ID

I failed in my goal of making map posts from the trail, but I still managed to collect a high-resolution GPS track of almost the entire hike. That in itself was challenging enough to be a proud accomplishment for me. I’ll write a little about how I did it, but let’s start with a map and the data:

I collected this data with a QSTARZ solar travel recorder. It worked really well, but even with a little built-in solar panel, keeping the unit powered up for 12 hours a day was a challenge. On its own, a fully charged battery would last two days at most. So I relied on supplemental solar power from a 4.5 watt Brunton Solar Roll. Even so, a few times I lost power. I estimated our route later in these sections and made them a much lighter color.

This system works well if you can charge the battery from a car or wall outlet every 4 days or so, and there is at least a few hours of direct sunlight every day. If that’s not an option, you’d have to start carrying spare batteries.

GPX Viewer Track Map and Graphs

Near Santa Fe, NM

We return to the site of our snowbound May hike to see how it feels now. No postholing this time! The Santa Fe Ski Basin parking is now packed, however, and the trail is accordingly much busier.

It takes ten minutes of climbing before my body starts to come out of its murky funk, and after twenty minutes I feel normal again. We theorize that having an elevated heart rate for 10 hours every day causes your body to think you’re trying to sleep when you stop. It’s nice to feel awake again on warm, clear day!

GPX Viewer Track Map and Graphs