Thursday, March 22, 2012 - City of Rocks State Park, Faywood NM
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Back at the Rocks, City of Rocks State Park, Faywood NM, March 22, 2012
Back at the rocks
It's good to be back. I really like this park, as do others; it's quite busy here.
A note on charging Apple iOS devices
There is an ars technica article today discussing their confirmation of what others have been finding; that Apple iOS devices will continue to charge up to an hour after the displays show a 100% charge and that if one lets them charge an extra hour or so the subsequent run time is extended.
Most people, I assume, leave their devices plugged into a charger overnight but I don't do that unless my rig is plugged into shore power. When I'm boondocking and running off my precious battery power at night I tend to shut everything down overnight to conserve the house batteries. Then I'll charge my devices during the day and disconnect the charger when they reach 100% charge on the indicator. I think I'll try leaving them charge longer and see if I notice a difference.
Arrg!
I keep a second Time Machine backup on an external hard drive. The partition it's on just failed during a backup. I just reformatted the partition and a new backup is under way but now I have no second copy of older Time Machine backups. Arrg!
Night camp
Site 2 Canes Venatici - City of Rocks State Park, Faywood NM
- Verizon cell phone service - fairly good signal - best on west side of the park
- Verizon EVDO service - faster than many places I've camped
- Go to City of Rocks State Park website
- Locate City of Rocks State Park on my Night Camps map
- Check the weather here
The Heliograph in the Apache Wars
"The mountains and the sun...were made his allies, the eyes of his command, and the carriers of swift messages. By a system of heliograph signals, communications were sent with almost incredible swiftness; in one instance a message traveled seven hundred miles in four hours. The messages, flashed by mirrors from peak to peak of the mountains, disheartened the Indians as they crept stealthily or rode swiftly through the valleys, assuring them that all their arts and craft had not availed to conceal their trails, that troops were pursuing them and others awaiting them. The telescopes of the Signal Corps, who garrisoned the rudely built but impregnable works on the mountains, permitted no movement by day, no cloud of dust even in the valleys below to escape attention. Little wonder that the Indians thought that the powers of the unseen world were confederated against them."