Busy day and beautiful plants

Today was really busy.  I was up earlier than usual and full of energy, so I decided to defrost the refrigerator.  The fridge and freezer are pretty empty, I'm shopping tomorrow, so this was a good time to get this done.  I had some small plastic containers in the freezer (for my cold drinks - these are bigger than ice cubes), so I took everything out and put them in the sink, covered them with ice cube trays and the plastic containers, and covered it all with towels.  The freezer was already done, so I only had the fridge.

I got my hair dryer out and pointed it at the ice on the fins, and waved it back and forth.  I was surprised that it didn't take long. I put flat plastic containers on the highest shelf to collect the water, but everything that melted went into the little tray with the hole that takes the water outside onto the ground.  It was really fast and very easy.  I think, now that I know you aren't supposed to let the ice get that thick and it's so easy, I'll probably do this more often. 

While the fridge was empty, I wiped it down so it's all clean and ready for the groceries tomorrow.

Then I got all the laundry ready, rugs, towels, clothes, etc., and walked down to the laundry in the park.  I did three loads, put everything away, and then vacuumed everything.  Washed the floors.  The Palms is smiling today.

I went outside and filled the batteries with distilled water and added oil to the generator. I have a "task" pop up every two weeks in my Outlook program to do these two tasks so I won't forget, but I skipped it since I'm here in an RV park and not driving or using the generator.  I've been on electricity for 30 days, and wanted to make sure they were both topped off before I leave on Wednesday morning.  I was surprised at how much water the batteries took, and how low the oil was.  I wonder if the high heat causes this.  Anyway, I'm back on the "every two week" schedule now.

I'm finding I'm not as much in control of my rig when I'm in an RV park.  When I'm boondocking, I keep track of everything, the distilled water in the batteries, the oil in the generator, the solar, the fresh water tank, and the grey and black water tanks.  It becomes part of the normal routine.  Since I've been here with full hook-ups, I've backed up my grey water tank into my shower and my distilled water and gen oil got low.  That never happens in the desert. I'm going to have to get back into the routine again. Starting Wednesday.

I left one of my tablets (I have a few of them) at Walmart a few weeks ago when I was checking out, so I need to see it it's in their lost and found.  I put everything in these tablets.  Whichever one is closest gets written in.  Places I want to go, mile markers to look for, shopping lists, bills, people's names I want to remember, tips I hear, pretty much everything I might want to remember.  Sometimes I'll pick one up and look through, and remember a freeway I traveled with all the possible places to turn off and camp for a while. I'm always finding things that bring back good memories, or things I'd forgotten about.  I don't know what's in the one I lost, but I'm going to check tomorrow and see if they have it.  I'd like to get it back! 

So, tomorrow all we have to do is go to Walmart for groceries, and then top off our propane tank here in the park, then we'll be ready to leave Camp Verde, AZ.  I'm going to have a follow-up blood test at a lab in Palm Springs, it's a leftover from my annual physical in February.  Two readings were a little low, but in doing research on the web, one cause could be my surgery. I guess major surgery can knock the numbers off for a while, so this is just to make sure they are back to normal.  I'm going to overnight at the local casinos while I'm in that area.  Hopefully I'll have results in a few days, then I'll head to New Mexico.  WHERE IT'S COOLER.

Katie smells like lavender.  I couldn't figure out what she smelled like after each walk - when she was chasing lizards and running around bushes - until they started blooming.  I had a lavender bush at my condo, and it's a different variety, but smells the same.

 

That made me think of how unusual it is for Katie and me to walk along manicured paths with such beautiful trees and plants and flowers, and since we're leaving, I decided to take photos of them.  Most have just started to bloom, so this is a good time of year to be here.

 

   

 

It's been nice to be here for 30 days, but Katie and I are ready to leave. She must sense that we're leaving soon; the last couple of days, every time I start putting things away, just normal regular things, Katie gets up on the back of the dinette seat in her  "ready to ride" position. She starts out here and then ends up in her bed when we're on the road.  She looks at me like, "Hurry up, I'm ready!"  She's a great traveler.

From me and Katie, have a great Monday, everyone!  :)