Settled again - at McPhee Campground, CO

We got everything necessary for our departure done yesterday, and I woke up early this morning raring to go.  I had to get Katie out of bed for her morning walk to the dumpster with our little garbage bag. That might have been a first. We were on the road before 8 am and stopped in Cortez at the Walmart for some food, a tall Cosco 3-step stool and lots more chew-toy treats for Katie.

We were soon on our way to McPhee Campground, which wasn't a very long trip.  So far I like this campground; it has lots of trees and bushes.  There is a lake nearby that we saw on our way in, but I can't see it from the campground. There are some electric only sites, some full hook-ups, and lots of dry camping sites, which is what I have.

 View from my kitchen window of our picnic table area

I drove around one of the two loops, then the other and chose a site.  Good Verizon here, The Palms is pointed West for my solar panels, and pretty much in the open.  Our picnic table area is behind us, with a nice tree west of the table, so if it's hot, the table will be in the afternoon shade.  Lots of Restrooms and water spigots around the loops.

We got settled and paid for four days (in this loop, you can only pay for four days at a time in the "open" - not reserved - sites.  I like that best, anyway, because if I want to move, I've only got four days in the site.  The Camphosts' names are Venita and Spanky Bear, they are the only bears in the campground.  They said no problem, they are slow this summer and there will be lots of empty sites.  If I DO have to move because someone else wants my site on the fifth day, I'll just find another one.

Female Black-headed Grosbeak

I can receive UPS packages here, so I'll see if my daughter can mail my Sirius XM radio here.  They don't have US Mail service, though, just package shipping companies.  I need to get the mailing address from Venita.

Female Black-headed Grosbeak

There are deer here, I've already seen one walking through the neighboring campsite, and the birds above that I snapped at Venita's bird feeder.  She said there are doves, pigeons, hummers, lots of birds. When I saw the Grosbeak, I knew what it was because of the one I snapped at Mesa Verde, but this one looked a little different, so I looked it up, and yesterday's was a male - black head - and this one with the white on her head is a female.

It's cloudy and there has been a lot of thunder, and we just had a nice rain.  I'm hoping for more.  I was told the Mancos Fire, the one I drove past on the way to Mesa Verde, has been put out, so I think the area I'm in is safe, fire-wise.

With my Senior Pass I'm paying $8.50 per night, a much better rate than the $14.63 per night at Mesa Verde.  There is a 30-day limit.  I don't know if I'll stay that long, we'll have to see how it goes. 

Here's the recipe for the croutons, it's a great way to use up the end of the loaf of bread:

Homemade Croutons

6 slices bread
¼  cup olive oil plus a little more
2 large garlic cloves, minced
1/2 tablespoon kosher salt

Slice your bread into 1/2” pieces. (Or into quarters if you're doing snack squares.)

In a large skillet, heat your olive oil. Add the minced garlic and saute for 1 minute, or until the garlic has started to brown. Add the salt and bread to the skillet, making sure each piece has plenty of room. (If you crowd the bread, it won't brown correctly.) Let cook 2 minutes, gently shaking the pan every once in a while.

Turn each piece of bread over and cook an additional 1-2 minutes, or until golden brown.  (The oil never seems to be enough for me, so I always take out the bread, add more oil, and put the bread back in, trying to make sure they are all turned over.  You could toss the pieces in a bowl to coat both sides before putting them in the pan.)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Spread the coated cubes onto a baking sheet and bake until golden, about 10 minutes.  (I usually then turn off the oven and keep them in there a while so they get pretty crunchy.)

This doesn't make a LOT of croutons or "crispy toast squares," so I usually make two batches.  I keep them in a sealed baggie in the cupboard. 

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

Happy 4th of July!

 

We are getting ready to leave – today I’m taking care of tanks and doing the laundry.  Tomorrow morning we are leaving, heading north toward Delores, CO where there are many camping spots. We're going to leave early, do a little shopping in the closest town, then head to a couple of places that I’ve found through blogs and Forest Service websites that look good.

I have various wrap-up photos that I want to post – lots of different subjects.  Since I haven't posted much, they are piling up. 

I’ve taken a lot of bird photos, these are the best, and I think I’ve got the correct names:

 Black-headed Grosbeak

 Isn't he beautiful?

These Whitebreasted Nuthatches, there were a lot of them, caught my attention because they were running up and down the trees in front of The Palms, singing away, pecking at the bark of the trees.  They were very busy.  In reading about them, I learned they were pecking at the bugs and larva in the crevices of the bark.  They were fun to watch, and very pretty little birds.

 

This first little Thrush was minding his own business when the second one came along and started dive-bombing him, then they were flying at each other. 

It looks like he has something in his beak?

My little Katie, as I’ve said before, doesn’t usually have a lot of expression on her face, but this is her “just back from a walk and now I get a treat” face:

 Just look at that big smile!

The way she is laying here makes me think of a deer – and she is at least part Deer Chihuahua:

 This is an interesting plant – I thought it was pretty. 

Squirrel that came through our campsite:

Butterfly (moth?) on flowers.  There are a lot of black butterflies and white butterflies here. 

And finally, I’ve been making my own croutons; I can’t believe how good they are.  Whenever I make a salad, I eat the croutons before I’m done making the salad.  Then I thought, instead of cutting the bread into little squares, why not cut each slice into quarters?  So the other day that’s what I did.  They are such great snacking crackers, and twice now I’ve made them into a dinner.  I put each square on the plate, slathered it with mayo, and added sliced tomatoes and ripe avocados.   OMG, they were sooooo good.  This is a photo, I didn’t make it pretty or cut the tomatoes and avocados evenly, it was already made when I thought about taking a picture.  I got the crouton recipe from the Internet, tried a few and settled on this one – so easy and super delicious!

 Crouton toast treats with watermelon balls - so good. Notice the bite, I couldn't wait.

From me and Katie, Happy 4th of July everyone!  :)

We're still enjoying Mesa Verde National Park in CO

WELCOME to our two new Followers!

TravelBug-Susan  says in her blog profile that she is an enthusiastic, fun-loving traveler and hopeful romantic. She and her husband have been gate guarding for two months at a 24/7 gate in Cotulla, TX, and as of today are in San Antonio, TX where her husband is starting a new job that will allow them to still travel.  Good luck in this new adventure, Susan, that's what this lifestyle is all about!

Helga Vater, welcome to you, too.  Helga's info is all in German, and she doesn't appear to have a blog, so I'm assuming she has an interest in RVing, but can't tell anything further than that.  Thanks for joining us, Helga!

Thank you Susan and Helga for following along with me and Katie - We're happy to have you both on board!  :)

We're still here in Mesa Verde.  It's a very quiet, peaceful park with lots of birds and deer to enjoy.

Three deer just pranced down the path to our campsite and ran around the stand of trees near us.  There is a family camping behind some other trees, and I think the little boy yelled something and scared the deer.  I love watching them run.

There are deer here that come right into the campsites, snacking on the tender leaves on the trees and grasses.  They are aware of us when we walk by, but don't move unless we get too close.  They keep their eye on us until we've passed by.  It's pretty much an everyday sighting, which is fun.  The other day a large doe layed down under the trees next to our picnic table and just stayed there looking around. Katie seems okay with them; she just watches them for a while then ignores them.

 YUM!

We met Teri (her blog is Teri’s World) on Friday, another Blogger who is workkamping here for the company that owns the campground in this National Park.  She works outside the park about 5 miles down the mountain at their main office and is their comptroller. It's a six-month stint, and she said she loves working there.  I met her last Thursday when I went down to pick up a package from Amazon.com, and then on Friday she came up in the morning and we had coffee and talked for almost three hours.  The morning just flew by.  It was nice meeting her; she is another solo female RVer and we had a lot to talk about.

Teri, thanks for coming over for coffee, I enjoyed our visit!  :)

I originally planned to stay here for three nights, but I liked it so much I extended our stay until July 5.

 My Sirius XM Radio is on the blink and still under warranty, so I called the company and they said they would mail me a new radio (and I'll mail them back the one that doesn't work.)

Unfortunately they mailed it to my daughter's address in California, the one they have in their files.  That's after I gave the "warranty technician" the address here at the park - I gave it to her twice, and had her repeat it back to me.  I specifically told her I was on the road and the radio HAD to be mailed to me here in Colorado.  I asked her how long it would take, and she said, "Since you're in California, it will only take a few days because it'll be shipped from California."  I said, "No, I'm NOT in California, I'm in Colorado – at the address just I gave you as a shipping address?  That's where it will be coming."  Oh, Yeah.  I think she wrote it down and tossed the paper.  The CO address never made it into the warranty file for shipping, so the radio ended up in Vacaville, CA on Saturday.

So now my daughter has to ship it to me at her expense because Sirius said they would not pay for a second address delivery, and it won't go out until tomorrow, so I may be here longer than Thursday morning. If it's not here on Wednesday, I'll pay for another day, and keep paying day by day until it arrives.  I could be waiting in worse places! 

First a radio that doesn't work right and then customer service that sucks.  It took a phone call of more than 40 minutes and talking to three people yesterday at Sirius before my phone battery died and I gave up and later called Kristy to just send it on to me.  I hope the replacement radio works!

It seems pretty empty in the park, but there are a lot of roads with loops on each that come off the main road, so you can't see all the campers from the main road.  I've had people come and go near me, most stay for only a few days.  Most of them are gone for the day and come back to camp later in the afternoon. There are a lot of things to see further in the park about 10 to 15 miles.  (This is a huge park.)  I started to drive up there the other day to see what I could see.  After 8 miles I gave up and came back to camp.  There’s a narrow, dark tunnel you have to drive through. Usually tunnels don’t bother me, but that one did.  Also the road is very windy and honestly, I enjoyed the photos on the brochures and decided I didn’t want to do any more driving up that mountain.

So that’s it for now.  I don’t know if I’ll post again while I’m here.  Although I get 1 to 3 bars on my cell phone, it really isn’t very good for uploading and downloading and I can't talk on my phone unless I stand outside right near The Palms. I wrote most of this last night, but couldn't save it, so luckily I did a copy/paste into Microsoft Word and copied it over here again this morning. I couldn't bring up any photos at all, but this morning I have better connections, so I hope I can post this.  I have been able to pretty much keep up with your blogs and my e-mail, and that’s about it.

Here's a really pretty sunset from last Friday.

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

Mesa Verde National Park – Morefield Campground

After driving all day Sunday, stopping here and there, I finally settled on Mesa Verde National Park to spend the night on Sunday.   

We stopped at Durango to see if we could overnight at the Walmart or Home Depot, but they both said no. It's a city thing.  I need a short ladder, but I'll wait for a Walmart that allows O/N parking to buy it.  So, I checked my Atlas and on-line info and it was onward to Mesa Verde National Park. We got here around 5 pm.

Morefield Campground is within the park, and has tons of campsites.  You can make reservations, but according to the website, there are always campsites available.  All the sites with hook-ups were taken or reserved, but that’s okay, because I didn’t want h/u. The sites are all very natural, no concrete or cleared areas. There are a lot of trees and grasses and low bushes, which I'm sure keeps the dust down.  I like the feeling of the campgrounds.

The website said the dry camping sites were $20, but the price went up this year, and the site I was on had not been updated.  The daily one-half price with tax was $14.63 with my Federal Golden Age card. 

We kind of did the check-in backward.  They have a nice system that I didn't know about.  First we came in and drove around a few of the loops and found a site that wasn’t reserved or taken and it was perfect.  I looked around for a place to pay, you know, the little posts with envelopes?  There were none.  I asked a neighbor up the road how they paid, and they said you need to go to the store and check in, pay, and they give you a piece of paper with your name and check-out date and you put it on the campsite number post.  Once you have the paper, you drive around and find your campsite. So if you decide to come here, go to the Moreland Campground Store first to check in and pay.

So I drove back to the “store” and paid for three nights.  They have a grocery store with food and also souvenirs, shirts, all that stuff.  There is a café, free showers for people camping here, and a coin-operated Laundromat.  There’s an evening program every night at the Amphitheater, and an all-you-can-eat pancake/sausage breakfast every morning between 7 and 10 am for $7.95 I think she said.  There are some nice trails, but Katie isn't allowed on the trails.  That's okay, at this elevation just walking around our loop is enough for me.

 

The Volunteer checking me in said there is a Momma Bear in the park with her two year-old cubs.  Also several coyotes have been sighted and they have already lost one dog.  I’m going to keep a tight rein on Katie, that’s for sure!  I've lost my Bear Bell that used to be on Katie's leash, but my whistle is attached, which was also suggested.  If I see the bears, I hope it's from the inside of The Palms!

I think we're going to enjoy being here.  The sites have a table and b-b-q pit, which you can’t use with the extreme fire situation going on in the state, actually in the area.  People are not allowed to even smoke outdoors, they have to smoke inside their car or RV.

Here's our site:

This path goes from our site to one of the restrooms:

View out the dinette window:

.

On our way here, I could see weird looking clouds in the distance, and as we got closer I realized those were clouds with smoke under them.  We went through an active fire zone with emergency vehicles parked on the side of the road and a helicopter over the nearest fire dropping water or fire retardant.  Flashing signs said “Do not stop for the next 5 miles.”   

There were lots of fires along the way, a couple that were spewing a lot of smoke and some that looked very small, just starting.  Some dark thick smoke, some white smoke. It was kind of scary, and then we were through it.

As we climbed the mountain to the Mesa Verde Park Entrance, there was a huge canyon between us and the fires, which were very visible from the road up to the park. 

I was told the smoke is going in the other direction so it shouldn't bother us here in the park.  I hope they are able to put the fires out soon.

I was able to update my Verizon tower access signals, but the coverage here in the park is minimal. One of the brochures I was given says there is no cell service in the park.  As I was driving around I was able to get one or two bars, though, that were soon dropped.  The Morefield Campground Store has free Wi-Fi, and I saw some people sitting at tables with their computers.  The volunteer said it’s not very good, but I will be able to get e-mail, and I’m sure I will be able to also upload my blog posts. 

So far so good, I like it here and plan to stay the full three days. Katie and I need to relax for a while and not worry about driving.

HEY, I just realized (last night when I wrote this) that I was getting 3 Verizon bars in this campsite if I put my tethered phone next to the window - we might even extend our stay!

From Me and Katie, I hope you have a nice Monday!  :)

4 strikes and we're out :(

WELCOME to our newest Follower, turquoisemoon!  She has two blogs, but is not an RVer that I could see.  Since I'm on the road, I didn't go down too many posts, but the posts I read look interesting.   Thanks for following along with us, turquoisemoon, we're happy to have you aboard!  :)

Although we had a beautiful campsite at Navajo Lake, I decided to move on the next morning. 

1.  Really hot - why does The Palms have wheels if we can't move to a comfortable area? 

2.  I couldn't seem to find a site where I'd fit and still face west.  That helps get the maximum from the solar panels, and puts us with our nose facing the hottest part of the day. We've been getting the sun beating down on us in the dinette window in the early part of the day, and then in the window over the couch in the hot afternoons.  It really helps to have the sun start in the kitchen window, go overhead, and end up coming in the windshield. I can control the heat better that way.

3.  This is a super dusty park. Not a lot of gravel or small rocks, just dry dirt that is really dusty.  But I probably would have stayed with those things, at least for a few days, #4 is what did us in. 

4.  I woke up Friday morning and stepped into the most ants I've ever seen.  They were everywhere!  BIG black ants and little black ants.  They were inside my (fake but fabulous Walmart) Crocs in seconds and I was really worried about them getting into The Palms.

I've never packed up so fast.  That was early Friday, and it's now Sunday morning, and I haven't seen any ants inside The Palms, so I think we're okay.

Heron Lake State Park was next on our list, so we headed that way.  It was a beautiful drive.  From the Visitor's Center, they have a telescope to use to see an Osprey nest.  There are three babies.  When I was with a camp host looking for a site (she was so nice, and went way beyond her duties to help me out) we drove right by it and saw two babies peeking out before mom tucked them under her again.

It was a little cooler there, and even though it was a weekend, there were some nice campsites I could get while facing West that were right near the water.  I even drove down to the Primitive Camping area at the far end of the Heron Lake State Park road.  The road was rough, and the turn down to the water was sharp and had large ruts.  I took a chance - wow, what ride! - but we made it.

Our primitive campsite, for about 10 minutes.

It was quiet and beautiful, with two other campers within eyesight. Katie and I walked down to the water, and in the dried mud there were large bird tracks, so I was thinking this would be a great place for bird watching.

I got my phone to check West and the level bubble app, and saw there were NO VERIZON BARS.  Rats! I couldn't stay there with no phone, so we drove out back to the main camping area. 

I was in an Extended Network area, and even if I was lucky to get any bars to allow calls in and out, this extended network didn't allow access to the Internet through my phone, at least I couldn't get it. Other people told me they used their computers, but I was on the phone with Verizon in the Visitor Center for 40 minutes, and we just couldn't get me on-line.

Anyway, I figured I could stay a few nights without Internet access.  We found a great campsite with a beautiful view and also with an easy walk to the lake.

 

I got The Palms set up and we sat outside for a little while enjoying the view.  Then Katie and I walked down to the lake, and I lifted her up and carefully put her back feet into the water.  She didn't fight me, so I put her front feet in, just a few inches - I was still holding her - and she started doing the dog paddle!  It really is instinct, because I don't think she's ever been in a lake before.  We walked more along the lake water line, and then walked back and I waded in the cool water and SO DID KATIE with no prompting from me!   Up to her knees.  I was really surprised.

So we walked back to The Palms and Katie sat down and started licking her stomach.  I laid her down on her back to see what was going on, and she had red bites/welts all over her underside.  Under her armpits, all over her chest and stomach, and down the inside of her back legs.  GEEZ.  I found some black bugs on her and picked them off, then put her in the sink and gave her a bath, thinking it would be soothing and might get any other bugs off her.  I put the 3 in 1 antiseptic ointment that the vet recommended for her nose all over her.  Surprisingly, she didn't seem to be bothered too much.

In the morning her bites looked a little better, and I found some Neosporin cream to put on her.  I decided to move to another site out of the grasses near the lakeside.  The new site overlooked the lake and was also an easy walk, but we stayed away from the lake on Saturday and only walked on the gravel roads.

The camp host in that area said all the little dogs get bit like that.  We had clouds coming in and a storm expected. After the rain, the bugs aren't bad, she said.  Unfortunately, we didn't get any rain and this morning, the sky didn't have a cloud to be seen. It was going to be hot again and I decided to leave and head north and see if we could find an area with cooler weather and Internet access.

 Beautiful Friday Sunset.

Of course, having the phone access is mandatory for me, but so is the Internet.  One thing I realized is that I couldn't even get on-line to figure out where to to next.  I couldn't get the temps in other areas, which was the fastest way to the coolest, closest NM campground.  I finally looked at the Atlas, picked a town over the border in Colorado, plugged that into the GPS and we left New Mexico, heading north. 

We are now sitting outside the Pagosa Ranger Station in the San Juan National Forest. It's in the middle of the small town of Pagosa.   This is a nice town, clean and rustic and lots of little shops.

When I post this, I'm going to do some research on where to go next.  But first I am going to call my son, Tom.  His 45th birthday was yesterday and for the first time ever, I didn't wish him a Happy Birthday.  I walked around the campground with my phone looking for bars, and finally was able to get a call though.  I had to leave a message, so at least he knew I didn't forget about his birthday.

I have no idea where we'll be posting from next, your guess is as good as mine.

From Me and My Dog, have a great Sunday, everyone!  :)