A full waste tank requires immediate attention!
I hitch the Casita to the Perfect Tow Vehicle and drive us over to Caballo Lake State Park in search of a dump station. We find one at Appaloosa Campground where we camped previously. Before dumping, I take photos of the pretty view.
The colors have not been softened by the camera. This is how Caballo Mountain and Caballo Lake look in early December.
Imagine such a lowly task in this magnificent setting!
Appaloosa Campground on the lake side of the dam is elevated, allowing a good view of the lake.
I decide to camp on the other side of the dam in Riverside Campground.
Although it doesn’t look like it in this photo, I park the Perfect Tow Vehicle away from tree branches. I don’t want anything falling on my new solar collector.
The forecast is for more snow, possibly more wind, too.
The lower elevation and surrounding embankments at Riverside give some protection from the wind. I park the Casita and unhitch. The crew and I drive up to the self-pay station and deposit a check for $8 (two nights). We keep on going out of the campground, get on I-25 and make the short trip north to Truth or Consequences.
I need to go to Walmart.
I’m thinking I need a battery for my dead computer, but Walmart doesn’t have it. As I’m scooting around the store loading my cart with provisions, I bump into Chuck and Geri!
Later, out in the parking lot, I call Bill and Kathy as previously arranged.
Bill wants to explain a device he’s going to fabricate that will help make tilting the solar panel more manageable for me. See, Bill envisions my little fingers losing a grip on the panel as I’m putting the pins in the support bars, resulting in the lovely, brand-new, solar collector crashing down on the roof. When he’s really wound up, he sees me losing my balance while trying to raise the panel, causing me to fall backwards off the ladder, scaring the daylights out of the crew and incapacitating myself forever.
Bill and Kathy tell me to stay put in the Walmart parking lot.
In a few minutes they pull up in their Jeep. The first thing Bill does is check my laptop. He plugs the laptop power cord into the inverter inside the PTV and it starts charging the laptop. Last night the laptop would not charge at all. It died and stayed dead. Now it’s charging! Hooray! No need to buy a battery!
Bill takes some measurements off the solar panel, Kathy hands me a piece of pumpkin pie wrapped on a paper plate, and we all decide to meet at my campsite in the morning. Bill will make the device today and install it tomorrow.
See why the crew and I can’t get out of New Mexico?
Friends keep doing good things for us!
rvsue
rvsue and her canine crew 