2023 Summer Road Trip: Cold Cooler in a Hot World

 

Not what you want in a cooler. July 2023. Flagstaff, Arizona. Credit: Mzuriana.A

This here, 9 Mistakes EVERY New Camper Makes With Their Cooler, by Playing With Sticks, is the best video on the subject I've seen thus far, in all of my searches for same, on how to keep cooler innards cold. If only I'd had this before I embarked on my road trip through the Hotlands this summer.

Almost every rule that Drew presents is gold, although some are common sense, like: Do not put your cooler out in the sun.

I'm especially entranced - and can't wait to experiment with - these hacks: 

• Place a wet towel atop the cooler contents. Whoa! I hear angels singing. Not only is this a good hack, it has so much more utility for me than the blue-ice packs, which, as I've sniped about before, spend a lot of their life squatting rent-free in my limited packing space while I'm on the road. 
• The 2:1 ratio of ice to food is sobering, but I guess, necessary, if I want to eke out all the blessed coldness I can. 
• Employ a two-cooler system: One cooler for food. A second, smaller cooler for drinks. Reason: Protect the food cooler from the more-frequent hot-air invasions to grab cold beverages throughout a day.
  

I did, in the past, make the mistake of draining the ice-melt from my cooler. Yeah, in a moment of illumination back then, I realized that was kinda crazy. I stopped doing that. Better to protect my food in water-impermeable bags or containers to prevent unpleasant sogginess than to let go of precious cold melt. 

2023 Summer Road Trip: Oliver Lee Memorial State Park: A Morning Visitor

 

2023.0805 Lizard visitor at my Oliver Lee Memorial State Park campsite. Alamogordo, New Mexico. Credit: Mzuriana.

 

I surely do love lizards. 

They are always welcome at my campsite.

The book, by the way, sucked. My God, 'twas a murderous bore. I cannot fathom why I read it to the end. I warned the campground host, to whom I offered it, that he cannot give it back to me no matter what. I warned him: It's no good. I made an ethical disclosure, in other words, respecting his right to self-determination in making a decision he might regret.

Other lizards I have loved: 

 

 

#30

 

2023 Summer Road Trip: Oliver Lee Memorial State Park, New Mexico: A Reintroduction

 

 

2012 not 2023 - My Oliver Lee Memorial State Park campsite. Near Alamogordo, New Mexico. Credit: Mzuriana.

I landed at Oliver Lee Memorial State Park the last day of July. Feeling sentimental about being here.

Twelve years ago, I lived at the campground for two weeks while waiting for the appointed date to move in to my Alamogordo apartment. 

Indeed, upon my arrival the other day, I put up the very same tent and laid out the very same tablecloth that I did in 2012. I still have the folding table and the green-lidded bin. And the coffee mug. The Playmate cooler with its handle is released somewhere in the universe. 

This go-round, I got all red and sweaty putting up my tent in the dog-day, 95-degree heat. Had to pace myself.

Before I get into some other sweaty details, I will share the glorious joy of the ever-changing drama that the park performs on its massive 360-degree living stage. 

The slide show below showcases how the light moves across the lines of the terrain, and the sunsets, the sunrises, the moonrise, the vastness of the Tularosa Basin, the folds of the mountains. 

 

It feels good to be here.

10 Years Ago: Hope and Zombies

 Original post here. 

Gallup newspaper headlines. May 2013. Credit: Mzuriana.

I've written before about the value I received in watching The Walking Dead. Indeed, when I drafted this post, I had started over at the beginning to watch it all again, after I'd seen the series finale. (I'll have skipped over a lot of the 7th season, though, because of its traumatizing sequences with Negan.)

Ten years ago, back in 2013, the contemporary iteration of zombies, the "walking dead," were unknown to me, although both the original comic book series and the show had emerged earlier. 

But I had learned about preparations for the so-called Zombie Apocalypse, back when I held the CDC in high esteem. 

Sunday, August 4, 2013

Hope and Zombies

Highway 82, Hope, New Mexico

Hope, New Mexico, is the future-history site of the Battle of Hope, in which humans prevail over zombies, according to World War Z.

Highway 82, Hope, New Mexico

Located on Highway 82, Hope, New Mexico, is about 20 miles west of Artesia.

Highway 82, Hope, New Mexico

I saw neither humans nor zombies. There is a post office.

What caught my attention was what seemed to be the imprint of a fire on the side of what seemed to be the firehouse. What?

Highway 82, Hope, New Mexico

It's almost supernatural.

2023 Word of the Year: FEAR: Face Everything And Recover

 

Temporary hospital tents in Greenburg, Kansas, following tornado. October 2007. Credit: Mzuriana.

 In June, I applied the acronym, Face Everything And Rise. 

August shares similarities: Face Everything And Recover.

But where rising is a letting go - a release - recovery requires remediation. 

It requires a series of actions. Perhaps some pain. Certainly discomfort. Most definitely fear.

In recovery - with its requisite remediation - I can only control my process, with no control over the outcomes. There's the faith that recovery will result, in some manner, although perhaps not in the way I might have imagined. 

Recovery likely means I have to listen to uncomfortable truths - or if not truths, someone else's beliefs in what is true about me and about us, about our past, our present, and our future. I will want to make informed decisions about how - and if - to rebuild relationships ripped by storms.

Recovery almost certainly requires that I act differently and that I think differently in future. And that, in turn, will result in others making an informed decision about how they wish to proceed.

As much as many of us would like to think we can do so, it's not likely that I'll be able to "figure things out" on my own. As a 12-stepper said once: "We can't pull ourselves out of quicksand by our hair." 

So I will need an experienced trail blazer to help me find the path. I will remember the stobor. 

 

The 2023 word of the year thus far

1. January: FEAR: Looking Into the Abyss Without Falling In
2. February: FEAR: Fuck Everything And Run
3. March: FEAR: Forgetting Everything's All Right
4. April: FEAR: Take More Risks
5. May: FEAR: Feelings Expressed Allow Relief
6. June: FEAR: Face Everything And ... Rise
7. July: FEAR: Frustration, Ego, Anxiety, Resentment
   

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