Monthly Archives: March 2022

Bighorn Campground After Dark

Standard
I took this photo of a sign at the Bighorn Campground.

I stayed one night at the Bighorn Campground in the Gila National Forest in late September 2021. As I stated in my report on the campground, it was a basic free national forest campground with a pit toilet and a few campsites each with a picnic table and a fire ring. If I had driven through during the daytime and not stayed the night, I might have even said the place was boring. However, once the sun went down, I did experience some excitement there.

I’d eaten dinner and cleaned up and gotten into my van. I’d left the sliding door on the driver’s side of my van open, hoping to stay awake long enough to do some stargazing. Darkness was descending, but the last light of day lingered. I stood in the open doorway and saw a lone, bright star (probably a planet—Venus, dare I guess?) in the sky.

I heard a rustling on my campsite, a noise larger than a mouse or a bird or a ground squirrel would have made. What the heck? I could still see the outline of the picnic table, but the fire pit had disappeared. Of course, the fire pit was where the noise seemed to be coming from.

I grabbed my Luci lantern, but it was not up for the job of illuminating outside of its immediate surroundings. I ditched Luci and grabbed a powerful flashlight I’d been given over the summer, hoping it would do the trick. I turned it on, and that sucker was bright!

I shined it around the campsite and caught movement by the picnic table. What was that? Was it a bear? No. Thankfully it was not a bear out there in the darkness just beyond my van. It was a javelina!

I shined the light around some more. No, it wasn’t a javelina. It was TWO javelinas.

I aimed the light to the far side of the fire ring. Oh no! It wasn’t two javelinas. It was THREE javelinas!

Holy shit! I exclaimed, probably loud enough for everyone in the campground to hear.

I was surprised by the first javelina. I was shocked to see the second one, and astounded to see the third. I don’t usually see large animals when I’m camping, and I’d never seen a gang on my campsite before.

Holy shit! I said loudly at least once or twice more.

Thanks for this photo by Donald Teel on Unsplash. This is not one of the javelinas I saw. I don’t even know if this is the exact type of javelina I saw. This is the only free-to-use photo of a javelina I could find.

According to the commentary “Javelina: What Are They, and Where Can You See One?” by Ross Morgan on the Santa Fe New Mexican Website,

Javelina, also known as the collared peccary because of their white collar around the neck, stand 20 to 24 inches at the shoulder and weigh 35 to 60 pounds…

Javelina prefer mesquite habitats with an abundance of prickly pear cactus but can also be found in semi-desert canyons, cliffs and watering holes near cactus. These animals are primarily herbivorous, animals whose primary food source is plant-based, and like to travel in small family groups feeding on roots, insects, fruits, bulbs, beans, worms, invertebrates and reptiles.

(If you want to learn a whole lot more about javelinas, check out the 1993 edition of Wildlife Notes dedicated to the creatures put out by New Mexico Game and Fish)

I’m not good at estimating size, but based on medium-sized dogs I’ve known, I’d say these critters weighed 30 to 40 pounds.

I kept the bright light shined on them. I couldn’t look away. I usually think animals are cute or cool, or at least I appreciate the chance to observe them. These javelinas…I thought they were just ugly, and I did not feel fortunate to have them in my campsite.

They were shaped strangely, and their wiry fur didn’t cover much of their skin. Their little eyes shone red in the beam of my flashlight. Maybe they dredged up some memory of the evil pig in the Amityville Horror, but I didn’t like them. I particularly didn’t much like being so close to them.

Burnt trash left in the fire ring by previous campers. Do you see the black bananas? (I took this photo.)

I realized they were congregating around the fire ring. They were snuffling through the trash previous campers had left there. I’d noticed before a few black bananas sitting on the top of the burnt pile of garbage. I hadn’t investigated closely enough to determine if the bananas had been burnt too or if they were in the late stage of decay that borders on rotten.

I saw one of the javelinas grab a banana in its mouth and run off from the other two toward the brush at the edge of the campsite. This action was minimally cute.

One of the two left behind walked away from the fire ring, closer to the picnic table and closer to my van. When I saw it was giving me the side eye, I worried that I might be in danger. I got fully into my van and closed the door. That was enough wildlife observation for me for one night. I hope the guy who’d ridden up on a bicycle at dusk hadn’t left food in or around his tent to attract them. I imagine having javelinas invade one’s tent would be an unpleasant experience.

According to the Arizona Game and Fish webpage Living with Javelina,

Javelina occasionally bite humans, but incidents of bites are almost always associated with people providing the javelina with food. Javelina can inflict a serious wound. Defensive javelina behavior may include charging, teeth clacking, or a barking, growling sound. Javelina may act defensively when cornered, to protect their young, or when they hear or smell a dog.

I don’t think I was actually in danger since the javelina didn’t charge but just strolled closer. However, I think getting in the van and closing the door was a safe move.

If you encounter a javelina while camping (or even in the city if you’re in Tucson or possibly some other places in the U.S. Southwest), here’s what you should do, according to the aforementioned Arizona Game and Fish webpage:

  • Scare off animals by making loud noises (bang pots, yell, stomp on the floor, etc.); throwing small rocks in their direction; or spraying with vinegar, water from a garden hose, or large squirt gun filled with diluted household ammonia (1 part ammonia, and 9 parts water). The odor of the ammonia and the nasal irritation it causes will encourage the javelina to leave. Avoid spraying ammonia in the eyes as it may cause damage even at this low concentration. Ammonia should not be used around wetlands because it is toxic to fish and amphibians.
  • If the animal is confined, open a gate, have all people leave the area, and allow it to leave on its own. If it is still there the following day, contact a wildlife control business
  • If you see javelina while walking your dog, avoid going near the javelina and quickly take your dog in a different direction.

I read for a while after I closed the van’s door on the javelina gang. I turned off my light around 9 o’clock and promptly fell asleep. I woke at 1am to the sound of a steady rain hitting the top of my minivan. There was some lighting and I heard thunder too, in the distance. I drifted back to sleep.

At 4am I woke up in the midst of what in the Southwest is sometimes called a male rain. Raindrops were pounding on the roof of the van. Lighting flashed so close and so bright, it was as if the paparazzi were shooting photos through the curtains covering my windows. Thunder boomed loudly, so close I felt the van vibrate around me. The storm stayed on top of me for an hour.

At 5am, I gave up all hope of getting back to sleep. I dressed by the light of my Luci lamp, all the while hearing a noise vaguely like the one a propane heater makes. The rain had stopped, so I decided to go outside and investigate the sound. When I opened the door to the van, the sound intensified, and I knew exactly what it was. The sound I’d been hearing was rushing water!

I grabbed the powerful flashlight and used it to navigate to what the day before had been a bone-dry arroyo. Now it was a rushing river moving fast enough to make a big noise. It hadn’t just been raining over me but upstream as well.

I decided I was ready to go. I didn’t see any reason to sit in the dark for another two hours when I was dressed and wide awake. I grabbed the few things I had left out overnight and threw them into the van. I slid into the driver’s seat and drove off into the dark.

A note on spelling: Some sources use “javelina” as both the singular and the plural of the word. Other sources add an “s” to the end of the word to make it plural. I’m following the lead of Tucson Weekly in the editor’s note “A Matter of Style” by Jimmy Boegle who says

the Official Tucson Weekly Style is that the plural of javelina is javelinas, with an “s.”

In my own writing, I made the word “javelina” plural by adding an “s” to the end. In quoting others, I did not change the way they made the word plural.

Free Camping at Bighorn Campground Near Glenwood, New Mexico

Standard

This campground report was written after I stayed there in September 2021. Some aspects of this report may have changed since then. Please do your own research before deciding to stay at this campground.

Bighorn Campground is located in the Gila National Forest, right outside the small community of Glenwood, New Mexico. It is the closest free campground to the Catwalk National Recreation Trail. It’s very small, maybe 10 sites, and it has a pit toilet.

The campground sits right next to and somewhat below Highway 180. Trees and bushes help screen the campground from the road. Most of the sites are as far from the road as possible, but the site I chose (as far from the entrance as possible) was next to and below the road. When big trucks passed, they were loud! Thankfully, Highway 180 is not very busy, at least wasn’t on the Wednesday at the end of September when I was there.

Highway 180 is on the right (passenger side) of Silver Streak, on the other side of that mound of earth.

The sites seemed mostly flat, but are really designed for tent camping. I had to park my minivan 15 feet or so from the picnic table on the site in order to find adequate flatness for sleeping inside my rig. Other sites looked flatter, but I was interested in being as far away from other campers as possible. It wasn’t difficult to pick a spot away from others, as there was only one other person in the campground when I arrived. At dusk, a man on a bicycle arrived and set up a tent. When I left at 5:30 the next morning, I saw a couple other vehicles that had pulled in during the night.

Each campsite had a heavy, difficult to move picnic table made of metal, as well as a manufactured metal fire pit. The road through the campground was dirt covered in gravel and the sites had sparse wood mulch and gravel spread over them. There were trees in the campground (juniper and cedar, I think), and scrubby desert bushes. The grass was dry and yellow and did not grow on the actual campsites. The trees did offer some shade on the sites, but it wasn’t the shade of a pine forest.

I had to park this far away from the picnic table in order to find a flat spot. The dry, yellow grass can be seen near the trees.

I read somewhere (probably on a Free Campsites website review) that during some parts of the year water flows in a creek along the back edge of the campground. I checked out the arroyo back there when I arrived, and it was bone dry. I thought it would have been nice to have the sound of water as my backdrop, but I guess I was too late in the year.

There’s not really too much to say about this campground. Have I stayed in prettier or more interesting places? Yes. However, the price (free) was right, and it was a good, close place to spend the night after I wore myself out hiking at The Catwalk.

The pit toilet was a cute, rustic little building. There was plenty of toilet paper during my stay (but I advise you to always be prepared with your own). There was an uncomfortable number of dead flies on the interior walls of the building, but I did my best to ignore them. The door to the toilet closed and locked, and I was happy about that.

Like most free campgrounds, Bighorn has no trash receptacles. Visitors need to carry out all their trash. Please! Do not leave the burnt remains of garbage in the fire pit as previous campers at the site I chose had done. If you camp at Bighorn, please pack out everything you packed in.

Have you ever seen a cuter little pit toilet?

As you may have guessed, Bighorn is also lacking running water (for washing and/or drinking), electricity, and hookups of any kind. There’s no dump station here either. Other than the pit toilet, this campground lacks all amenities. Please come prepared.

What Bighorn campground did offer, at least to me, was excitement after dark.

To read about what I encountered after the sun went down, please join me here on Friday for all the exciting details.

I took all the photos in this post.

Movie People

Standard

Movie people are staying at the hotel where I work.

I’d seen an article in the weekly county newspaper announcing some folks were in town shooting scenes for an upcoming midbudget movie. I thought maybe I’d see them and their equipment around town, but I didn’t imagine I would see them in the breakfast room.

When I got to work on Tuesday, I noticed a lighting truck in the parking lot, but I didn’t encounter the movie people until Wednesday.

I noticed the man and woman because they were younger (mid 30s, I would guess) than the hotel’s average guest. Also, they were having a heated but quiet discussion. It wasn’t quite a whisper fight, but it could have quickly gone in that direction.

The woman was trying to tell the man something, and he was telling her no and stop. He obviously didn’t want to hear anything she had to say. She persisted.

Isn’t that his job? she asked the guy in a whisper I could hear clearly.

He said he’d already told her he didn’t want to talk about it.

I found their exchange very interesting. This was the first argument I’d encountered in the breakfast room. My ears perked up, but however else the argument may have been resolved, it was resolved quietly.

At some point the woman left the breakfast room, but the guy lingered. He was on his phone later, telling the person on the other end that they’d be shooting later. He named the one bar in town that’s not associated with a restaurant or a group like the VFW or the Moose Lodge.

Oh, I thought. These must be the movie people.

On Thursday the man and woman were back in the breakfast room. Along with them was another woman, the same woman who’d come into the breakfast room the day before after 9am asking for coffee. Luckily for her, there was still some available. I always leave at least one of the big pump dispensers out on the counter even after the rest of breakfast is shut down and put away. She’d asked me if the coffee was good while she made her cup. I lied and told her I didn’t know because I don’t drink coffee. What was I supposed to tell her? I couldn’t very well tell her the truth, which is that I think the hotel’s coffee is weak, more like dirty dishwater than something robust and delicious with which to start the day. I did tell her other people have said they liked it, which is true. She tried a sip and said it was good. I told her I was glad she liked it, which was 100% true.

On Thursday the original man and woman were telling the third woman all about the shoot the day before.

They’d arrived at the bar at 10am. The bar was full of regulars. These weren’t people who showed up to be in a movie, they said. These were people who would have showed up even if there had been no filming involved. The movie people had brought lasagna, but the regulars at the bar didn’t even want to eat. They passed up the lasagna in order to drink.

The women marveled at the thought of preferring to drink alcohol to eating lasagna at 10am on a weekday. I have to admit, I agree with the movie ladies. I’ll take lasagna over alcohol any time of the day (or night).

They were so great, the first woman gushed. Everyone signed release forms.

I guess to movie people, signing a release form is a high degree of cooperation.

We got some great shots, the guy said. Some really great shots.

It was authentic, he said. So authentic. Really authentic.

Well sure. Any small-town Joe or Jill who shows up at a bar at 10am on a Wednesday to drink whether or not there’s a camera crew present is living an authentic life. It might not be the same life I or the movie people have chosen for ourselves, but it’s an authentic life nonetheless.

The movie man went on to tell a story about busting a prop bottle over another actor’s head. It broke as planned, but instead of being filled with water as expected, the prop guy had used actual beer.

It looked great, the man told the women. It was foaming all over the place! He was pleased with the shots they had gotten but had been concerned about the other actor driving later while reeking of beer.

After work I spent the rest of the afternoon referring to things as “authentic.” That rock over there? Authentic. The rickety wooden footbridge I crossed over on a hike? So, so authentic. The water tower against the clouds and blue sky? Absolutely authentic.

This foot bridge? Absolutely authentic!

Maybe when you spend your days creating fantasy, you forget that most people are living every day right smack dab in the middle of the real world.

I took the photo in this post.

An Update on My Job

Standard

My job as a breakfast room attendant in a mid-range hotel is going well. I don’t deal with too many clueless or entitled people, so I don’t have many interesting stories from my job to share. When I worked as a camp host and parking lot attendant and later as a clerk in the campground store, the can-you-believe-it stories rolled in faster than I could write the down. Honestly, I’m glad to have traded blog post fodder for a workplace with sparse drama.

Of course, there are little events to break the monotony of my workdays. People look frantically for the coffee, somehow missing the large pump containers marked “regular” and “decaf” on the counter right in front of them. Guests try to open the wrong side of the handleless refrigerator door. Folks ask for orange juice when we only have apple. I try to help them solve their breakfast problems without embarrassing them or making them feel bad. That door tricks someone every day, I joke to lighten the mood after telling a guest they need to pull on the other side of the aforementioned refrigerator door. I figure it’s early, and we’re probably all struggling.

The most puzzling situation I run into are the people who don’t push in their chairs when they leave the table. This doesn’t happen once a day; it happens several times a day. Is this a new phenomenon due to COVID? Folks must touch the chairs to pull them out. Why would they hesitate to push them back in after they’ve eaten? If the reason is laziness, these people have taken laziness to a whole new level. There doesn’t seem to be a particular age demographic refusing to push in the chairs. Young people, old people, middle age people, they all fail to push in their chairs. Pushing in the chairs is not a hardship for me, but having to do so leaves me asking why.

The most annoying guest are those who come in after the breakfast room is closed but still want to enjoy all the amenities. Breakfast is over at nine o’clock sharp. The moment the “The Drew Barrymore Show” pops up on the television, breakfast is OVER, and I’m hustling to put everything away and get everything cleaned up as quickly as possible so I can go home. Guests can linger in the breakfast room as long as they like, but they should get in by 8:59 if they want to find the toaster plugged in, the waffle iron on, eggs and sausages in the steam table, and cereal on the counter.

One morning a guest came into the breakfast room at 8:58. She puttered around making herself a plate. At 9am I started putting away things she wasn’t using. She must have seen me removing salt and pepper shakers from tables and turning off the waffle iron. Maybe she just didn’t notice. In any case, she finished making her plate and left the breakfast room.

A few minutes later (so probably at 9:05 or 9:07) she returned. In the time she was gone, I had dumped the uneaten eggs and sausages. When the guest came into the breakfast room, she made a beeline for the steam table. She lifted the lid and found the pan empty.

Ma’am, I’ve already gotten rid of the eggs and sausages, I told her.

She seemed perplexed. I bet she wondered how the eggs and sausages disappeared so quickly. What she didn’t know is that at clean up time, I’m quick!

(The next morning the same woman was in the breakfast room making her plate by 8:30.)

Latecomers throw off my cleaning schedule, but they make my life especially difficult if they want a last-minute waffle. If I turn off the waffle iron at 9am on the dot, it’s cooled enough for me to clean it after I’ve done all my other tasks. Twice I’ve burnt my arm while cleaning the waffle iron while it was still hot from after-9am waffle making.

Photo by NeONBRAND on Unsplash

People sometimes want to use the toaster after breakfast is officially over. This desire causes problems for me because as soon after 9am as possible I unplug the toaster and steam table. If a latecomer wants to use the toaster, I have to stop whatever I’m doing to plug in the toaster. (The toaster plug and electrical outlet are inside a cabinet, so I would have to stop my work to explain to guests where to find the plug and the outlet even if I didn’t feel responsible for plugging it in for them. Also, I have to stoop way down to get to the outlet, and we can’t ask the guests to get down on their hands and knees to plug in a toaster.)

(On a toaster tangent: Why, when cleaning the crumb trays, do I occasionally find globs of melted then resolidified butter stuck to them? Who butter their bread before toasting it? Is this a thing?  Are toaster novices staying at the hotel? Are toasters made to handle buttered bread? I think not! I’m afraid butter in the toaster will someday start a grease fire.)

One day I’d cleaned the breakfast room and put everything away, pushed my cart to the storage area/dish room, washed all the pots and pans and utensils and serving trays I’d used to prepare and serve breakfast, and headed back to the breakfast room to sweep, mop, vacuum, and take out the trash. It was after 10am.

As I was pulling the broom out of the storage closet across from the breakfast room, I saw two guests walking down the hall. They were a young (mid 20s) couple, (ostensibly) a man and a woman. The woman had been in the breakfast room earlier; she’d made a plate and left. As the couple got closer, I saw the man was holding an everything bagel in his hand. One bite had been taken from it.

Photo by Vicky Ng on Unsplash

The two young people stopped at the door of the breakfast room and looked in. They then looked toward the reception desk and must have made eye contact with the manager standing there. As I was coming out of the storage room to ask if I could help them, the guy asked something about our toaster.

How can I help you?  I asked. (At least I hope that’s what I asked. I hope my question didn’t come out more like What do you need?)

Is your toaster still out? he asked, gesturing to me with his bitten bagel.

I realized that from where he was standing and the way the toaster was positioned on the counter on the far side for the steam table, he couldn’t see it.

Breakfast ended at 9 o’clock, I told him. Everything is put away. (I figured the toaster being unplugged was as good as being put away.)

The young man looked disappointed, but I held firm. It wouldn’t have been bad if I’d only had to plug in the toaster, but I doubted it would have been as simple as that. He’d need to cut the bagel in half, so I’d have to get him a knife. He’d probably get crumbs all over the counter I’d already cleaned, and I’d have to clean it all over again. I wouldn’t be able to sweep until the entire operation was over because he would probably get crumbs and sesame seeds all over the floor. The whole situation would have really slowed me down.

Also? He wanted to put a bagel he (or someone) had chewed on into a community toaster! Gross! Germy! Yuck! At home? Sure, put your own germs into your own toaster. But in a community setting? Let’s keep our germs to ourselves.

So, no, I did not invite him into the breakfast room to toast his bitten bagel.

Honestly, the hardest part of my work day is getting myself out of bed at 4am. Also difficult? Going to bed at 8pm on the evenings when I’m not totally exhausted and ready to sleep the afternoon and evening and night away. But overall, I don’t mind the job too much. Somebody’s got to feed the people.

In related news, I took the 60 minutes food handlers course for my state and passed the test with a 97%. Apparently, I’m still good at taking tests.

Hats for Sale…March 2022 Edition

Standard

These are the 46 hats I have for sale. Please disregard ALL prior post about available hats. These are the only ones!

From the time this post goes live on March 2, 2022 until March 31, 2022 at 11:59pm Mountain Standard Time, I’m having a 2 for $22 sale. Buy two hats (normally $15 each) for $22, including shipping! Wow!

Want to stock up on hats? Get 4 hats for $42, 6 hats for $62, 8 hats for $82. Each hat in each photo has a number on it. Please use that number to order. When a hat is taken, I’ll make a note in the caption of the photo it appears in.

Pretty in Pink. Both are available.
Hat 4 is very soft, with a looser, roomy fit.
Greens and tans and goldens, oh my!
Hat #9 is SOLD!
All the colors!
Shades of green
Hat #18 is SOLD! Hat #17 is very tightly knitted, so it’s extra thick and probably extra warm too.
Hat #20 is extra long.
Hat #22 is red, white, and blue for the USA patriot in your life.
Hat #28 is made from a very dark purple and black yarn.
Both of these hats are made with a very soft, thick yarn.
The blues ain’t so bad…

Thanks for looking at all of these hats that I made with my own two little hands. If you want to purchase any of them, please send an email to rubbertrampartist@gmail.com. Please include the number(s) of the hat(s) you want and the mailing address you want them sent to. I can accept payments through PayPal and Venmo.