Tuesday, December 14, 2010 - Leasburg Dam State Park, Radium Springs NM
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Camped at Site 11, Leasburg Dam State Park, Radium Springs NM, January 22, 2009
Camped at Site 9
As you can see in this picture, Site 11, where I camped in January 2009, has a really nice view looking northwest out across the Rio Grande. That's my favorite site with hookups. Site 9, where I am now, is just off to the right of this picture and has an even better view. We like it here.
Night camp
Site 9 - Leasburg Dam State Park, Radium Springs NM
- Verizon cell phone service - good signal
- Verizon EVDO service - good signal
- Go to Leasburg Dam State Park website
- Locate Leasburg Dam State Park on my Night Camps map
- Check the weather here
Teosinte and the Improbability of Maize
The ancestors of wheat, rice, millet, and barley look like their domesticated descendants; because they are both edible and highly productive, one can easily imagine how the idea of planting them for food came up. Maize can't reproduce itself, because its kernals are securely wrapped in the husk, so Indians must have developed it from some other species. But there are no wild species that resemble maize. Its closest genetic relative is a mountain grass called teosinte that looks strikingly different - for one thing, it "ears" are smaller than baby corn served in Chinese restaurants. No one eats teosinte, because it produces too little grain to be worth harvesting. In creating modern maize from this unpromising plant, Indians performed a feat so improbable that archaeologists and biologists have argued for decades over how it was achieved. Coupled with squash, beans, and avocados, maize provided Mesoamerica with a balanced diet, one arguably more nutritious than its Middle Eastern or Asian equivalent.