Pretty, but Cold

April 19, 2012
Oofda! The overnight lows are in the 30s. Missy and I got up and went around gathering wood. There is a lot of good stuff still close to our campsite (unlike our last place). Still impressed by the gorgeous scenery. However, the strong wind gusts and cool temps made for a chilly day. I enjoyed the fire, but by early afternoon, I'd had enough of the variable temps and escaped inside. Missy stayed outside for a bit to guard the fire. We had made our own firepit in the field next to us, so there was concern that an errant spark might be carried by the wind and start a forest fire. It snowed a couple of times during the day. One bout was tiny balls, like miniature bean bag filler. Another bout was huge wet flakes. I looked outside at one point and chuckled to see Missy using the sun shade on the camp chair to act as a snow umbrella.
We all came inside around 3, and we tried to start the furnace. Broken….again. Goddamn it. We've gone through about 50 theories on why the furnace quits working, and what we think makes it work again. We did some massive testing…various settings with the battery hooked up, with it disconnected, with the genny, without the genny. We looked at all the fuses. So annoying, and sooooooooo cold. Something finally worked, and we got some blessed heat.


At some point today, a park ranger pulled up right to our truck and sat there, literally 15 yards from where we sat enjoying our fire. He didn't say a word to us…I thought we were being busted. For all we know, this is no longer a public campsite. I couldn't take the tension anymore, so I walked into the woods with the dogs. After about 5 minutes, he finally left. What was that about? My best guess was that he was jotting down our deets so he could keep track if we tried to stay longer than the 14 days max allowed in the national forest. But why didn't he say "howdy", or something?
Jeremiah drove down 2 minutes to the stunning overlook, where you can see into Santa Fe. There's phone reception there, so he was able to leave and receive voicemails with the repair shop. We are scheduled to have the lifts removed on Monday.