Goodbye Storrie Lake - Moving North...

Here are some of my favorite photos from our stay at Storrie Lake.   

A couple of lizards, the first one was a pretty blue and the second one was really fat:

 A couple of the campsites we had:

The lake was really up, I've never seen it so full.  That's probably why there were so many Canada Geese there, many with goslings.

And there were a few Clark's Grebe's, too, swimming around in the lake.

Last time I was here, Gallinas River - that runs into Storrie Lake - had a small ribbon of water, this time it was full, and rushing:

We were there when the Dog Leg fire was burning, and the smoke was pretty bad for a bit.  The sunset was really pretty, though, casting beautiful color on the lake where the sun was reflected.  This is a close-up of the photo below:

 

One of my favorite shots was this sunset from our campsite over the lake in the North campground:

Storrie Lake has lost most of it's luster for me, there's just too much rule breaking by the locals, and the people who work there ignore it.  Every time I'm there, I leave before I'm ready because I'm stressed out at some of the locals parking their rigs in the best spots, then going home and leaving for days at a time.  It's a small park, and they store their rigs there, saving the best sites.  They come to check on their rigs from time to time, then spend a night or two during their 14 days.  Makes it hard for travelers to get a good spot sometimes, and this time I just couldn't get it to work for me.  There was a child's birthday party one day at the site next to mine (this happens a lot from what I've seen), and there were ten trucks and some cars there, lots of people and lots of noise.  Walking through my site, etc.  That kind of celebration is what the group shelters are for, and if they are already booked, they should go down to the lake, where you can have a large group.

This is the second year in a row that my camp host left in the middle of the season.  "Tired of fighting with the Ranger over locals doing whatever they want, and taking over the campground.  Not worth the aggravation."   I don't know if I'll visit Storrie Lake next summer, we'll see... 

So we left and headed northeast to Bluewater Lake State Park in Pruitt, NM.  The people in charge there have good control of the park, and if you take a campsite, you'd better be there enjoying it!  If you have a large group, you have to pay for a group site.  I do better in that kind of atmosphere.  I'll have photos of our time there in a couple of days.

From me and Katie, have a great weekend, everyone!  ❤❤❤