Clayton Lake State Park | New Mexico

 

This is Clayton Lake, and to the right are what's left of old cottonwood trees that were alive before they started building the dam. 

 

 

This is the type of land that I drove by to get to Clayton, totally meadow, ranch land and lots of cows.  I was lucky enough to get a couple of photos of antelopes.  I certainly saw more than these, but there are some places you just can't stop for a photo!  I was also lucky to see a couple of cowboys rounding up some of the cows - yes, just like they used to - on horseback!

 

The lake was beautiful, when I could catch it without the monsoon clouds. 

While building the dam here in the 1950s, water washed away some dirt and left ancient dinosaur tracks in the hardened soil.  Supposedly there were multiple varieties here and there are over 500 prints.  It rained the day before, and I think it shows in the photos better with the water.

I thought this was interesting also, dried mud cracks that were petrified under all that top dirt that got washed away.  This was dried puddles along the shoreline of an ancient ocean.

Town is interesting, with some distinctive buildings.....  The library does have a new building.

This looks very much like the "wild west".

This one is interesting, I have no idea what this was when it was inhabited.

Sunsets gave us some pretty color on the scenery.

 

Abibliophobia

I have read lots of books all my life and I will confess to having a certain level of abibliophobia.  The term defines someone who has a fear of running out of books/reading material.  I've always used the library, although I now download 99% of the books I read from my former-home library.  I will sometimes pick up a book at a book swap that I haven't read, but not often.  When I was planning on living and cruising on a sailboat, one of my fears was that I would run out of good books to read.  I spent lots of time gathering books to be read on my trip to the islands.  While I was out there cruising, I would attend every book swap and also swap with other cruisers as we met them.  I had such a great selection that when I sold my boat in Venezuela, I had to leave them on the boat.  I knew I'd have a library where I was going. 

I now spend time in libraries to use the internet, and the one shown above in Bluff, Utah is one of the most unique. The building was formerly the jail and has been repurposed as the town library, which is open only 2 days per week, for a total of 12 hours per week.  It consists of one room and a friendly librarian full of information about the area.  The wifi there is probably among the top few I have had to deal with.  I've been in larger cities with larger libraries that didn't have wifi that good.

I certainly appreciate all the libraries I've visited and that I'll visit in the future.  It sure makes life easier for me.