Ah. A few moments of peace. Yet as I type, the rocking starts again. Swaying. Like. Like what? Someone agitated in the front porch rocking chair. Riding a swaybacked mule along a rough trail. Like sitting at a table in a motor home with no levelers, swaying from side to side in high winds. Very high winds. When I look out at the highway we were driving to and from breakfast in Rodeo this morning, six miles down the road, I see only dust.

The wind blew all night, but we were spared the rocking and the constant noise. It started swelling to storm as we came out of the Rodeo Grocery & Cafe, wrestled with the wind at the door and rushed to the car.

We are still here in Rodeo, waiting for the part that controls the levelers to arrive. The levelers are the four metal legs/posts, footed with a metal plate, that can be raised or lowered at different heights to level the motor home. (When the oil in the iron skillet on the stove runs to one side, something isn't right.) They quit working a while back, and in Elephant Butte the part was ordered, to be shipped to Rusty's RV Park. So we're here, rocking and rolling. I can attest to the fact that the levelers matter. They provide stability beyond the eight wheels on the motor home.

I'm sitting at the kitchen table facing the front windows. In front of me is the couch behind the driver's seat. Both table and couch are on the platform that is the slide-out, which gives us about 18"-24" more space when it is extended. Andre brought in the slide-out first thing. It has a tarp over it like the ones we see these winds inflating over the slide-outs of other motor homes in the park. A ripped tarp or bent rods would be damage we can do without.

The folding chairs are in the car. My bicycle blew over twice with a clunk against the front bumper where I thought it would be protected. The evergreens are in constant motion, swirling as if VanGogh himself were choreographing.

From the "caboose", Andre reports that a heron has flown successfully—into the wind—to the small pond near the gates. This, after saying that the winds must be at least 60 miles an hour. With regularity, I hear horrible noises from our roof, where there are air-conditioner and vent covers, as well as the satellite dish and the wifi antenna. I'm surprised that I haven't seen them fly by.

Heading back from breakfast, we were deciding to drive the fifty miles south to Douglas for groceries and exploration. Here, one can find milk, cheese, some lemons, tomatoes and tortillas. We need green. Now, it is clear that travel would be dangerous. You can barely see the mountains to the east—another rumble and thud from the roof—and the highway runs north-south. To the north, the mountains are more obscured than when I took the photos within the last half-hour.

We saw one tumble weed this morning blowing across the road before breakfast. My first on this trip. After torturing Andre by singing some of the tumbleweed song, I was joking that we're "driftin' along like the tum-ble-in' tum-ble weed". But not now—more constant sliding and thumping on the roof—we're doing our best to settle in. Swaying. The table under the computer shakes with the vibrations on the roof and the computer jerks too. Andre says this is the tarp being blown over the slide-out, even though it has been withdrawn into the body of the motor home. The sound rumbles and chatters from front to back, just over my head. To the west, the mountains are still clearly visible.

Andre has lowered the satellite dish. Now he is taking the car around the park to pay for today—and to check things out. Thump. Thump. It is getting worse over my head.

The perky evergreens on both sides of me undulate and shimmy. The yellow flag on the corner by the road attached to Rusty's sign is straight out.

It isn't stopping. I feel at sea. Oh, for an adobe home, thick-walled and hugging the ground.