Sunday, January 20, 2008 - Oliver Lee Memorial State Park, Alamogordo NM
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A hike up to the first bench
One thing I'd like to do while I'm here is hike up the Dog Canyon Trail as far as the Fairchild Line Cabin 2.9 miles and 1500 ft in elevation above the trailhead at the campground. That's about the limit of what this dilapidated body wants to take on in its present condition. Today I got well up onto the first bench, a sort of ledge running along the south side of the canyon. I made it to the 1.25 mile marker and turned back. That was far enough to test my condition and it looks like I should be fit enough to make it up to the cabin and back without beating myself up too badly.
Today's journey: A mile and a quarter up the Dog Canyon Trail.
Night camp
Site 8 - Oliver Lee Memorial State Park, Alamogordo NM
- Verizon cell phone service - good signal
- Verizon EVDO service - very good signal and access speed ( I have to qualify this - during my January 2008 visit the signal and access speed was excellent - in January 2009 it was practically non-existent during the day and slow at night with unpredictable short periods of excellent access)
- Go to Oliver Lee Memorial State Park website
- Go to Oliver Lee Memorial State Park on my Nightcamps map
- Check the weather here
Alex Can Think
Animal researchers are finally beginning to catch up to the little old ladies in tennis shoes who say Fifi the poodle can think. The fights are always between a big group of experts who think animals don't have a lot of feelings or aren't very smart, and a much smaller group of researchers who think there's a lot more going on inside an animal's head than we know. The really nasty fights always seem to go one way: it's always the animal "debunkers" who are on the attack. At least, I don't remember a single big academic fight where someone got fired or lost their funding for doing a study where the animal turned out to be dumber than people thought, and lots of studies like that have been done. Claiming that an animal can't do something isn't considered blasphemous.