Cactus RV Park, Tucumcari NM
Cactus RV Park, Tucumcari NM, May 1, 2010
Cactus RV Park is an old 40 site park along the now dilapidated Historic Route 66 frontage in Tucumcari New Mexico with basic gravel sites and full hookups. It's nothing fancy but is quiet and clean and handy to a decent restaurant and the Dinosaur Museum. Some sites are nicely shaded.
- Cactus RV Park is an old 40 site park along the now dilapidated Historic Route 66 frontage in Tucumcari New Mexico with basic gravel sites and full hookups. It's nothing fancy but is quiet and clean and handy to a decent restaurant and the Dinosaur Museum. Some sites are nicely shaded.
- Verizon cell phone service is available here with a weak signal but there is no Broadband service.
- Locate Cactus RV Park on my Night Camps map
- Check the weather here
Nights I've camped here
- Friday, April 30, 2010 - Cactus RV Park, Tucumcari NM
- Image: Cactus RV Park, Tucumcari NM, May 1, 2010.
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.