Saturday, December 19, 2009 - Bosque Bird Watcher's RV Park, San Antonio NM
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Dawn at Fort Stanton Cave, December 19, 2009
{Shiver me timbers!} I stepped out at dawn to toss my trash and just as I reached the cans a nearby pack of coyotes set up a howling racket, touching off a lengthy conversation with their neighbors. That sent a shiver down my spine I'll tell ya! At least it wasn't one of those big kitties so common out here sneaking up on me....
I'm headed for Ghost Ranch
Friends Kate & Terry are camp hosting at Ghost Ranch. Kate has been bugging me to come up for a visit and she finally convinced me to do it before they leave for the winter. It's getting colder up there than I really bargained for in coming to New Mexico for the winter but it may be quite a while before I get another chance to visit and tour the Ranch with "insiders." I'm going to go for it - then head off to Henderson NV between the holidays to warm up with cousins Ken & Connie as planned.
As long as I'm here, before I head north I'm going to spend Sunday having a look around the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge. It would be silly to be so near and not take a gander at the cranes if they are around.
Night camp
Bosque Bird Watcher's RV Park, San Antonio NM
- This is a basic, small Mom & Pop RV Park with full hookups.
- Verizon cell phone and Broadband service are available here with a strong signal.
- Locate Bosque Bird Watcher's RV Park on my Night Camps map
- Click for Google street view
- Check the weather in San Antonio NM
That's the Point of Emotions: Survival
That's the point of emotions: survival. Normal emotions are essential to staying alive and well. ... To most people this doesn't make sense. We humans tend to think of emotions as dangerous forces that need to be strictly controlled by reason and logic. But that's not how the brain works. In the brain logic and reason are never separate from emotion. Nothing is neutral. That's what you have to remember. ... A lot of people's emotional life is unconscious a lot of the time, especially when you're calmly thinking something through. You feel like you're just using logic, but you're actually using logic guided by emotion. You just aren't aware of the emotion. ... I recommend Descartes' Error to anyone who's interested in emotions, intuition, and decision making. ... Nature seems to have tried to wire animals and people to have useful emotions, useful meaning emotions that keep us alive long enough to reproduce. Emotions keep us alive by letting us make good predictions about the future, and good predictions let us make good decisions about what comes next.