A lake full of water, and other oddities
The weather’s beautiful, and so is a lot of other stuff
We made it to Dillon with only a couple of minor problems – primarily, we suffered some damage to the jack at the front of the trailer. We’ll see tomorrow whether a couple of whacks with a sledgehammer will straighten it out; if not, one of the services offered at the marina here is trailer repairs, so while Black Magic is in the water, the trailer can get the bent-up jack repaired or replaced.
We checked into our one-bedroom condo, and it is big. Pat and I have a king-size bed in a bedroom that makes it look small, while the living room has plenty of room for Tadpole plus a couple of sails we need to work on, and we’d certainly have no problem fitting someone else in there comfortably. Come the weekend, when we move up to a two-bedroom unit, we’re likely to get lost going from one end of it to the other; it would be a shame to let that space go to waste, so we hope we can get some crew to join us.
The lake itself is stunningly beautiful, and one of its most beautiful features is that it is full of water. Yes, really full – the water level is only two inches below the spillway. For all practical purposes, this lake has all the water that it can hold. To all sides, the lake is surrounded by mountains, especially at the western end, where strong winds can sweep down the slopes and suddenly make sailing … well … interesting.
After checking in and moving a bunch of stuff into the condo (it’s amazing how much that truck holds!) we went to look at the marina, meet the marina people, and find where to park the boat for the time being. Pat has been in e-mail correspondence with some of the people here, and so, even while we were just driving around, we were flagged down by one of the marina people who was driving around in a tractor, and he gave us directions to the parking area, following which, he asked when Mother and Dumbledore would be arriving, and then as he drove off, another marina guy drove up in his car and introduced himself. Amazing what happens when one has a distinctive boat – these guys didn’t even need to ask who we were.
Once we unhitched the boat, we did some reconnaissance. We started at the Dillon Marina, looking at the docks and mast-raising cranes and other facilities. There’s a big Snipe regatta this weekend, and their party was just getting going at the marina bar. We might have been able to join in, but, as Pat commented, except for Tadpole, we don’t much look like the type of people who hang off trapezes – we’d likely get spotted as impostors.
Next, we drove over the dam (apparently Dillon’s not a Homeland Security concern, since the dam doesn’t have a power plant) and around to Frisco, at the other end of the lake, stopping along the way to take pictures (to follow in a subsequent post), and to visit the Wal Mart (a charming, itty-bitty, old-timey one) to get a sledgehammer. Then we went to look at the marina at Frisco. It has just expanded, and its new dock looks hugely like the one we just had installed at Heron, except that Frisco got a more deluxe surface on the piers. I suspect it was built by the same company. While we were at Frisco, we discovered that a boat show was planned for Saturday, and several beautiful antique and vintage powerboats were already on hand. We saw stunning quantities of gleaming brightwork, representing, I am sure, thousands of hours spent on painstaking restoration. These are the sorts of boats Franklin Roosevelt might have been spotted on, or James Dean, or any number of the rich and famous in the days before fiberglass.
Next, we went in search of supper. We found a nice little pizza place in a strip mall not too far from the condo. The beer was not as extremely overpriced as we’ve sometimes seen in touristy areas, and the pizza was phenomenal. Normally, I stick to the basics and avoid the oddball combinations, but this time around, we tried a chicken cordon bleu pizza, and it was perfect – tender chicken, mozzarella cheese, and a phenomenal bleu cheese sauce. Fantastic.
We finished the day by getting a few groceries to supplement those we brought with us, so we can cook a lot of our own meals rather than paying tourist-area restaurant prices – another benefit of being in a condo rather than in a conventional hotel or motel. This condo complex even attaches a supermarket discount card to each key, so we got to save even more.
We made it to Dillon with only a couple of minor problems – primarily, we suffered some damage to the jack at the front of the trailer. We’ll see tomorrow whether a couple of whacks with a sledgehammer will straighten it out; if not, one of the services offered at the marina here is trailer repairs, so while Black Magic is in the water, the trailer can get the bent-up jack repaired or replaced.
We checked into our one-bedroom condo, and it is big. Pat and I have a king-size bed in a bedroom that makes it look small, while the living room has plenty of room for Tadpole plus a couple of sails we need to work on, and we’d certainly have no problem fitting someone else in there comfortably. Come the weekend, when we move up to a two-bedroom unit, we’re likely to get lost going from one end of it to the other; it would be a shame to let that space go to waste, so we hope we can get some crew to join us.
The lake itself is stunningly beautiful, and one of its most beautiful features is that it is full of water. Yes, really full – the water level is only two inches below the spillway. For all practical purposes, this lake has all the water that it can hold. To all sides, the lake is surrounded by mountains, especially at the western end, where strong winds can sweep down the slopes and suddenly make sailing … well … interesting.
After checking in and moving a bunch of stuff into the condo (it’s amazing how much that truck holds!) we went to look at the marina, meet the marina people, and find where to park the boat for the time being. Pat has been in e-mail correspondence with some of the people here, and so, even while we were just driving around, we were flagged down by one of the marina people who was driving around in a tractor, and he gave us directions to the parking area, following which, he asked when Mother and Dumbledore would be arriving, and then as he drove off, another marina guy drove up in his car and introduced himself. Amazing what happens when one has a distinctive boat – these guys didn’t even need to ask who we were.
Once we unhitched the boat, we did some reconnaissance. We started at the Dillon Marina, looking at the docks and mast-raising cranes and other facilities. There’s a big Snipe regatta this weekend, and their party was just getting going at the marina bar. We might have been able to join in, but, as Pat commented, except for Tadpole, we don’t much look like the type of people who hang off trapezes – we’d likely get spotted as impostors.
Next, we drove over the dam (apparently Dillon’s not a Homeland Security concern, since the dam doesn’t have a power plant) and around to Frisco, at the other end of the lake, stopping along the way to take pictures (to follow in a subsequent post), and to visit the Wal Mart (a charming, itty-bitty, old-timey one) to get a sledgehammer. Then we went to look at the marina at Frisco. It has just expanded, and its new dock looks hugely like the one we just had installed at Heron, except that Frisco got a more deluxe surface on the piers. I suspect it was built by the same company. While we were at Frisco, we discovered that a boat show was planned for Saturday, and several beautiful antique and vintage powerboats were already on hand. We saw stunning quantities of gleaming brightwork, representing, I am sure, thousands of hours spent on painstaking restoration. These are the sorts of boats Franklin Roosevelt might have been spotted on, or James Dean, or any number of the rich and famous in the days before fiberglass.
Next, we went in search of supper. We found a nice little pizza place in a strip mall not too far from the condo. The beer was not as extremely overpriced as we’ve sometimes seen in touristy areas, and the pizza was phenomenal. Normally, I stick to the basics and avoid the oddball combinations, but this time around, we tried a chicken cordon bleu pizza, and it was perfect – tender chicken, mozzarella cheese, and a phenomenal bleu cheese sauce. Fantastic.
We finished the day by getting a few groceries to supplement those we brought with us, so we can cook a lot of our own meals rather than paying tourist-area restaurant prices – another benefit of being in a condo rather than in a conventional hotel or motel. This condo complex even attaches a supermarket discount card to each key, so we got to save even more.
posted by Carol Anne | 1:04 AM
1 Comments:
I just discovered a place where you can find a couple of the photos we shot today, plus some interesting shots from the past, sometimes the distant past (for instance, the last time Elephant Butte was anything near full was 2001).
http://www.flickr.com/photos/76246643@N00/
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