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April 22, 2014

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Excursion 20 (10/13/2013)

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Excursion 20, Part 2 (Everybody Hates Kevin)

In which our intrepid hero coasts along a coast…

Lakes, great or not so great, are hard to come by in West Texas, smack in the middle of the Chihuahua Desert.  The first lake I ever saw was Caballo Lake in New Mexico, about a two hour’s drive up the Rio Grande from El Paso.  Caballo is a reservoir lake, created during the Great Depression, and is the smaller cousin to Elephant Butte Reservoir.  The first time I saw the lake, I did not even know that I had seen the lake.  In the 70s, my dad was hunting buddies with a family who owned a convenience store/gas station near the reservoir (and also owned a valuable New Mexico liquor license!).  The first time my family went up there, I craned my neck as we got close, so that I could see the lake, but to my disgust the lake was totally blocked from view by a high light-blue wall that someone had put up.  It was a long time—an embarrassingly long time—before I realized that the “wall” was actually the lake itself.

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August 4, 2013

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Excursion 8 (5/19/2013)

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Excursion 8, Part 3 (In the Shadow of the Gods Atomic)

In which our intrepid hero discovers the new adventures of Old Christine…

The photographs in this excursion are mostly sunny, which has certainly been an exception for me in 2013.  Writing this in early August, I can attest that the vast majority of weekends between April (when I started these excursions) and now have been overcast or rainy.  I lost a number of Saturdays simply because it was too rainy to bother going out.  This is in sharp contrast to recent years, in which rain has been rather sparse.  Good for farmers, bad for junior amateur shutterbugs like me.

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July 25, 2013

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Excursion 8 (5/19/2013)

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Excursion 8, Part 2 (The Beach is Back)

In which our intrepid hero slakes his lake thirst…

When I was a kid, my dad had hunting friends who owned a gas station and convenience store (with a rare New Mexico liquor license) at Caballo Lake, a reservoir in southern New Mexico formed by damming the Rio Grande.  We would occasionally go up there (a two hour drive) and spend the day there.  However, the place was still a bit of a distance from the lake—too much for a kid—and so we didn’t really see the lake except as a distance.  I think I may have only been out on the lake itself once, on a small boat.  So I truly was “underexposed” to large bodies of water as a kid.  I remember when I was 17 or so and had to fly from El Paso to Pennsylvania.  The plane changed in Chicago and I was able to see Lake Michigan (from the air) for the first time.  It was remarkable—like an ocean to me (who had not yet seen one).

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July 25, 2013

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Excursion 8 (5/19/2013)

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Excursion 8, Part 1 (Lake Effect)

In which our intrepid hero encounters a reasonably great lake…

I grew up in the desert and as a result have always been fascinated by large bodies of water.  As a kid, I had never seen any body of water larger than the Caballo or Elephant Butte reservoirs in New Mexico.  When I was a freshman in college in San Antonio, I drove one night with friends to the Gulf of Mexico, but it was pitch black and I didn’t see a thing!  I don’t know how old I was before I ever saw an ocean.  So bodies of water—large rivers (the Rio Grande doesn’t cut it!), large lakes, oceans, bays, all of that stuff—is sort of like a fascinating foreign country to me.

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