Camping with the birds

This is my campsite in Clayton Lake State Park in north-eastern New Mexico.

This place offers beautiful views and peaceful surroundings but also a few functional things I've wanted for a few weeks now.

In Florida I had to pitch the tent on rough gravel that is uncomfortable to say the least. Here I've got flat, clean, smooth cement for my tent base. A bed of pine needles on soft brown earth is ideal, but I'll take this over the Florida Experience of stones and white coral dust.

The sun's rays shine down on me here just as much as in Florida, but I have a steel shelter providing shade above me at all times. It's hot here, but its not humid at all: this is my first experience with "dry heat" and I'm loving it.

My particular shelter is home to a few birds that have made mud nests under the roof of the shelter. When I'm around they seem to be pretty afraid of me so they stay quiet and usually fly out and flee to somewhere else. But when I'm in my tent and they can't see me they sit in their nexts and chirp up a storm chatting to one another in an usual sounding style. It's like their sitting around the water cooler complaining about the new guy.