Poor Katie's face plant / skid :(

The other day when Katie and I were talking a morning walk with Jeanne and her dog Riley and Nancy, we saw a little dust thing crossing the road.  It was about the size of a large orange, and was made up of mown grasses and dust and lots of air.  As it rolled across the road in front of us, it slowly lost it's materials, and by the time it was at the edge of the road in front of us, it was gone.   Riley and Katie saw it and were super excited and for the first time, ever, Katie jumped out of the stroller and she and Riley ran to the grasses in the field, sniffing around and looking for the "thing" that was on the road.  They didn't seem to realize it had disintegrated into nothing before it reached the edge of the field.

We calmed the dogs down and I lifted Katie back in the stroller and we walked on down the road to the river.  As we were walking back, John came up on his bike.  He slowed down and we all talked together down the road.  All of a sudden Katie stood up in her stroller and again jumped out the front of it.  I don't know if she saw something that made her jump out, but it seemed like she just wanted to RUN.  Unfortunately as she hit the ground, her knees buckled under her and she skidded on her face and knees until she stopped.  It was so comical and so sad at the same time.  We all ran over to her and I picked her up.  She let out a little whine when Jeanne touched her leg, and I checked her over.  She looked fine.  Somewhere between her skidding and being put back in the stroller, she ran madly down the road a little bit, turned around and ran back, happy as a clam.  I think she just had a burst of energy she had to get out.

When we got back to The Palms and she was laying down, I checked her a little closer and found two skinned areas, under her chin and on her knee.  Fell down and skinned her knee - like a little kid. Poor baby.

I put some antiseptic cream on both places and she's fine.  If she does that again, she's going to have to be tethered inside the stroller.  Her injuries, as you can see from the photos, weren't much, but you just had to be there to appreciate that face plant and skid.  It sure stopped our conversation cold.

Here are the dogs in the flowers and grasses - you can see our recent rains have really helped the foliage around here; the poor park workers are constantly mowing down the grasses in the fields and around the campsites.

And here's Katie and her Baby later in the day - both looking at the camera.  Katie looks kind of serious:

Along that same road I got some photos of a hawk up in one of the trees:

And away he goes - I'd have loved a close-up overhead shot, but it was not to be:

I decided to do Camp Wal-Mart for three days. Instead of 14 days in the campground, and then taking the required 6 days out, I've changed it up a little.  It's just so darn hard to spend 6 days at Wal-Mart (of course leaving during the day and then returning to overnight), so I decided until I leave here the beginning of September, I'm going to camp for 7 days, take 3 days out, 7 in, 3 out, etc.  There's no problem getting a good place to camp here at Storrie Lake.  As long as you don't need electricity there are tons of places to put RVs and enjoy the landscapes, so that's what I'm doing.  For one of the weeks I might camp right along the edge of the lake, I haven't done that yet.  IF the mosquitoes aren't too bad.

While in town I spent a large part of one day in the Las Vegas Carnegie Library where they offer free, fast wi-fi.  I needed to download the large Windows 8.1 Updates (thanks for the heads-up, John!) and also needed to update my Garmin Maps.  Both would have taken forever, and I don't know if I would have gotten the maps downloaded, so this was a great place to relax and use their wi-fi.  The Maps were over 2G, and even though I have unlimited Verizon data, they've been throttling my account big time lately, and have even cut me off so that I had no Internet a bunch of times, so I'm trying to be very frugal with my data.  And for me, that's not easy!

I had some bad news last week.  My dad, who is 93, fell and broke his ankle on Wednesday and was taken to the hospital in northern California.  He is now in a rehab facility, and not very happy about it.  From the news I've gotten he seems to have a minimal break, everything is in line, and they may not cast it.  He's in a 4-piece boot thing, he said, and when the swelling goes down, he might get a cast.  Either way, he's well taken care for now and hopefully will heal fast.  My brother and sister are in the process of moving my dad to Northern California and selling his house, and this adds another layer of stress to the plan. He's scheduled to move into a nice apartment care facility in two weeks where he'll be near my sister and brother-in-law.

Then I received a call from my son on Thursday that his dad had died.  Jim was my first husband, and the father of my son and daughter.  The kids had a good phone conversation with each other, and I talked to them both also.  They had both recently had a good visit with their dad and spent some quality time with him.  Jim was an avid golfer and collapsed on the golf course.  After trying to revive him in the hospital for 30 minutes they let him go.  If he could have scripted his death, I can't think of a thing he would have changed.  I'm so sad for my kids and their families and even though he was my ex-husband, I knew him for over 50 years, and am very sorry he's gone.  The service was yesterday - Rest in Peace, Jim.

Our closest full moon of 2014 was the other night and it was beautiful:

WELCOME to our newest Follower, Greg, who has two blogs, Travels of a Rambling Van and The Random Rants of a Rambling Man.  Greg says, "I’m a lifelong camper and now that I’m retired can enjoy even more camping, hiking, and exploring in my customized Sportsmobile Sprinter van, all 19.5 feet of it. Come along for the ride and see what we get up to!"  I think I'll just do that!  Thanks for following along with me and Katie, Greg, Welcome Aboard!

My numbers show another new Follower, but it must be out of order on my Followers list, because I don't see another new name.  If you are the other new Follower, I'm sorry I can't welcome you by name - but please feel welcomed!  It's always exciting for us to see that number go up, and whether its a new follower with a photo and description or an anonymous person, we're happy to have everyone join us.  :)

From me and Katie, have a good weekend, everyone!  :)