Navajo Lake State Park, Part 2: Cottonwood Day Use Area

 

Navajo Lake State Park, Cottonwood Day Use Area, New Mexico.

The Cottonwood Day Use Area of Navajo Lake State Park is along the San Juan River.

If I weren't so lazy, I'd carry around with me various field guides that would tell me the names, habitats, and stories of the flora and fauna that I encounter. But I am generally lazy in such areas, so all I can say about the red-twigged bushes are .... "oooh, pretty."

But I will go the extra mile to try and identify odd-looking effluvia from animals: 

Navajo Lake State Park, Cottonwood Day Use Area, New Mexico.

My first guess was that it was an owl pellet, but unsure, as this was kind of long and the contents loose rather than compact. (Did you know you can buy owl pellets?) ... but a more knowledgeable person told me that it's likely coyote or fox scat, the excretory remains of an eaten rabbit.

Navajo Lake State Park, Cottonwood Day Use Area, New Mexico.

Navajo Lake State Park's Cottonwood Day Use Area attracts fisherfolk. The campground, though not filled to capacity, had plenty of overnighters.

Navajo Lake State Park, Cottonwood Day Use Area, New Mexico.

It's very close to the town called Navajo Dam, which seems to exist primarily to support fishermen.

Navajo Dam (town), New Mexico

Navajo Dam (town), New Mexico

Navajo Dam (town), New Mexico

Below is part of the ride on Highway 511 between the Cottonwood Day Use Area and Navajo Lake. At :20 on your left is the scene of the photos atop this post.

 

Navajo Lake State Park, Part 1: On the Road

Highway 173 - or 511 - between Aztec and Navajo Lake State Park, New Mexico

I've got to get in the habit of noting which highway I'm on when I take road pics or videos. The photo above is a good example of this need - it could be either Highway 173 or Highway 511. 

Whichever - it's between Aztec and Navajo Lake State Park, New Mexico.

It was pleasing to be behind the silver, Airstream-like, retro RV. An iconic 60s kind of photo of Being On The Road.

Navajo Dam: A Thrill of Fear

Navajo Dam, New Mexico.View from Highway 539.

Take a close look at the photo.

You see the concrete spillway over on the left, yes? And a faint gravel-y road that snakes down left-center. And do you see the road that curves down on center-right? With the two car dots on it?

Do you see a bit of Navojo Lake on the other side of the dam's rim on the upper right? .

Now look for the road that rides the top of the dam. In the photo, it is just a line, a line akin to the line of an infinity pool. As in a line that isn't really there, or at most, the suggestion of a line.

When I approached the dam from Aztec, New Mexico, I drove up the road you can see plainly, with the two car dots, otherwise known as Highway 511. A nice road.

When I finished my look-see of the dam and the lake, I thought I'd return to Aztec via Highway 539, the road you don't see in the photo but that is there. When I crossed the bridge that is over the spillway, I blithely took a left onto 539 instead of dropping down onto 511, and that's when it happened.

It took me completely by surprise - a piercing, cold thrill of gut fear, as I realized I was on a road that had no shoulders, and where there was nothing but air on both sides of said road, and where there were only - surely for decorative purposes only - intermittent yellow posts that could not possibly serve as any sort of protective structures in the event I should suddenly veer off the road into the abyss.

I would have laughed out loud at how shrilly was this fear shouting at me, but not while I was still driving oh so carefully on that ribbon that lay atop the slender ridge of the dam.

Whew. It has been a long time since I felt such as that.



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