I found a lake...

I love lakes.

After spending the past 5 years living 20 minutes from 175,000 acres of lake and spending as much waking (and sleeping) time on or near it as possible, you won't be surprised to hear that I almost cried yesterday when the dogs and I topped a hill and saw this:


Honestly, we all thought we'd died and gone to heaven.

I promptly dug my book out of my bag, grabbed the dog's leashes and my (pink, 5-mega-pixel) camera, let them out of the station wagon and away we went. The first thing Marley did was take a swim but he did it so promptly I missed getting his first swim in....3 months...on film. So you'll just have to take my word that he was a very, very, very happy dog as you can kind of tell by this (slightly stoic) expression on his face:


While Marley thought about swimming across the little lake to visit the fishers...


...Jada was embarking on lake adventures of her own, staring at the bubbly green algae that abounded where we were:

For those who are curious as to what this New Mexico lake looks like in its entirety, the following are for you:



So after the dogs played and I'd read some, I decided to check out some trails around there, thinking, in my old Kentucky ways, that I was sitting on acre upon acre of public land to be used and enjoyed by, well, the public. But it wasn't so:

As you can tell, Jada is very confused as to why I stopped and turned around. We did walk on the side of the mountain where there were no signs. I was cautious, though. People in New Mexico like guns.

I felt slightly confined because it seemed every way I'd turned that day for a good hike it was thwarted. Before we found the lake, I drove to what is called the City of Rocks State Park, which is about 25 minutes from my house. I'd been told by a friend that you had to pay $5 to park; it outraged me when she told me and it certainly outraged me when I saw the sign for myself. I mean, my taxes are already paying for the whole park and I have to pay $5 to park? Are you kidding me?

But they weren't.

So I snapped a picture, pulled over on this side of the stupid sign and let the dogs out to pee. A ranger was promptly over in his Polaris thingie asking if I was going into the park. No, sir, as a matter of fact I'm not.

Mostly because:
1) I didn't have $5 on me and
2) I wasn't going to pay it

Besides, the City of Rocks looked stupid anyway:


But the good news is: we stayed at the lake for almost 2 hours and then went home where I continued reading my book on the porch:


And the dogs slept near me and I think Marley is saying 'thank you' here: