Monday, January 7, 2008
Windmill RV Park, Carlsbad, NM - Oct 14-Nov 15
Windmill is a solid blue-collar park that was recently purchased by the owners of Carlsbad RV Park, a similar park less than a mile farther south on the way out of town. Windmill supposedly has wi-fi, but it's a pay system installed on the cheap by the previous owner. We were never able to get a signal (not that we would have paid for it anyway) so we were forced to connect at the library, the senior center, or at the motel next door. All-in-all a colossal hassle since we were never able to do everything we needed to do at any one spot. Even more frustrating was the fact that Carlsbad RV Park had fine WiFi, which was free and also available for our use. In the future, we will pick that park.One of the main reasons for staying in Carlsbad was to play bridge 3 or 4 times a week with our duplicate club. They play at the senior center, which, we discovered, also offers line-dancing. While discussing the future of the senior center one afternoon, we learned that Carlsbad has two senior centers, and that they both have line-dancing. While the instructor at our regular center was good, the one at the south senior center was excellent. We were sorry we didn't learn about her earlier in our stay.
We had one of our stranger adventures during a walk along the Pecos River. We could hear (& see) all kinds of merriment from a large gathering on the other side of the river. It was still going on by the time we crossed over, and we decided it must be some sort of city-sponsored event, so we strolled up & helped ourselves to some free ice cream and a couple of other snacks before we realized it was a company picnic! No one seemed to notice our red faces as we tried to sink into the ground and then slowly fade away down the riverwalk.
On one especially gorgeous day we drove to Guadalupe Mtn NP for a day-hike up McKittrick Canyon (which has been described as the prettiest spot in Texas) in order to view the fall colors. Roughly 15,000 years ago, the whole area was covered with maple, oak, walnut, and other deciduous trees, but as the prevailing climate became warmer & drier, they could only survive in the Guadalupes, leaving an island of fall colors surrounded by desert. The colors were not at their best this year due to a hot, dry summer, but were still wonderful.Click here for More Guadalupe pictures.
We also revisited the Living Desert Zoo & Gardens which displays flora & fauna native to the Chihuahuan Desert and found it as charming as ever.
And we attended a Carlsbad Community Theatre production of "Amahl & the Night Visitors". We had been put on notice that Deanna Garringer (Amahl's Mother) was going to be better than we expected, and she was quite good. But Daniel Miller (Amahl) was truly excellent, with a clear, pure soprano that was dead-on, and his portrayal of a bratty, precocious boy was also right-on, with eye-rolls and impatient sighs that were perfectly nuanced and not at all over-the-top.# posted by Doug and Willie @ 8:34 PM 
