Pinholes

The wind was crazy at night in Alamogordo.

Our tent was sitting right at the base of the Sacramento Mountains.  The wind would come whipping down the corridor at about 1 a.m. each night, and beat the tent around until 6 a.m.

To top it off, we couldn’t stake the tent.  The ground was an inch of dust and gravel on top of solid rock.

As you can see, despite my best efforts there would be no negotiating with the ground.

So we improvised.

We took big rocks and put them inside of the tent, one in each of the six corners to keep it in place.

It worked like magic until last night.

The wind was awful last night.

It began at 1 a.m. as usual, but with twice the intensity, and then it never stopped.

The wind was so powerful that it was moving the tent walls despite the 25 pound rocks inside.

The wind would beat the wall in for 20 minutes, then we would push it back out and replace the stones.

After 8 hours of this abuse, the stones wore pinholes in the tent floor.

It doesn’t matter much as long as we’re in the desert, but we’ll have a bit more duct taping to do if we get anywhere with some precipitation.

It’s a little disappointing, when you cross the duct tape threshold.

Needless to say, we didn’t sleep much last night.

So this morning, we decided to break camp and head out.  We thought we might stay another night at the Oliver Lee Memorial State Park, but with the wind like that, what’s the point?

So now we’re back on the road, heading north in New Mexico.

Camping is only $10 at any state park in New Mexico, the Land of Enchantment.

Compared to $20 to $30 in Texas and Florida, that’s a killer deal.

Comments

Hey gang,

For my senior design project I am going to be camping somewhere within a 2 hour radius of Salt Lake City Utah. From may 19th to may 24th. I thought maybe we could meet up and camp together. More details to come.

-John