Katie vs. the Bird

Poor Katie - we are asphalt camping at Sandia Casino in Albuquerque, NM, and there are lots of birds up here in the parking lot trees.  The first day we walked around Katie got bombarded by protective birds.

Katie was just minding her own business, sniffing at all the new smells, and suddenly, GEEZ, the Western Kingbird almost hit her.

He kept it up - he was very agitated, of course, because we were right under the nest.

Katie finally had enough and jumped at the bird - see his tail feathers at the top of the photo:

This is the Western Kingbird who was causing all the havoc:

Watching us like a hawk (well, like a Kingbird I guess)!

And look what I found in the nest:

At least three little babies and a straw wrapper.  Here's the baby on the right side:

The poor father bird flew to the top of the tree and spread out his tail feathers:

Lots of birds guarding their nests this time of year.  :)

The first night we were here at Sandia Casino, there was something going on down at the casino.  All of a sudden I heard sirens, and I thought they were going by us on the Interstate.  Later, when I looked down the hill at the casino, this is what I saw - they had all arrived through the roadway behind me I think, and they must have turned off their sirens.  No way I would have missed all these vehicles coming in behind me with their sirens blasting:

There were fire trucks - red and white and yellow ones, a ladder truck, ambulances, fire rescue trucks, paramedic trucks, police cars, I'll bet there were a dozen or more emergency vehicles.

There was also a Channel 4 News Truck, and the Channel 13 News helicopter flying overhead.

The flashing lights were on for hours.  Whatever it was, I never found out, but it must have been serious.  I was glad we were up the hill away from it all.

On our way here driving through Santa Fe (where a tornado was expected, so we were getting out of town fast), I saw three motorcycle riders in the lane to my right, and one was packing.  I've never seen this before: 

See the gun on the red bike rider's left hip?  I'm sure not messing with that group!  Don't people who carry weapons on their body usually put them under their shirt or jacket? 

We had some pretty sunsets here at Sandia:

WELCOME to new follower RVJohn Boo, who does not show a photo, but the link to his blog is here:  RV John | RVing around the US.   Thanks for joining us as a Follower, John, I enjoy your blog and especially your beautiful close-up bird and flower shots.  Welcome Aboard to you!

That's it for this place.  Movin' on down the road in the morning.  If you are ever in Albuquerque, you can do blacktop parking at Sam's Club, Wal-Mart and Sandia Casino.  Nice!

Snake (warning) - but it's a beauty

If you hate snakes, just squint and scroll down to the photo of Jeanne and Riley - that'll be much better.

On our last morning walk at Storrie Lake, we took our usual round trip to the wrecked bridge and back, and as we got to that area, I noticed a large snake under one of the trees.  I haven't seen a snake since Santee Lakes three years ago.  That was a smaller snake, and not nearly as pretty or fancy as this one.  This one didn't have rattlers, but we still didn't get too close.

Snakes aren't my thing, but I can still appreciate their beauty.  Just like every other creature, they are big and small, pretty and plain, friendly and not so friendly.  It's kind of amazing how that happens.

He was quite a bit thicker in the middle; I don't know if that's just the way he's built, or if he just had a nice meal.

I had to take one more photo of Jeanne and Riley after our walk.  Jeanne and I were standing there talking, and Riley went over to the stroller, laid down in the shade and rested.    

He's such a beautiful dog.  AND he has much better manners than Katie!

There are ranch-type houses right behind the electric campsite circle, and across from my site there were horses.  I'm looking forward to seeing the horses at Bluewater Lake, and I understand they have babies.  Can't wait to see the little ones.

I've gotta show you a Sunday breakfast I made while at Storrie Lake:  Fruit salad, toast and jam, a Cheese Omelet made from two large brown eggs. (Wal-Mart has these HUGE brown eggs, and I've been getting them lately.)  On the omelet I put fresh guacamole, sour cream and catsup.  OMG! So good.  It was way too much, but I did the best I could.  LOL

 The omelet would have been better with the guac, sour cream and catsup on the side, but there wasn't room.  I buy the smaller paper dinner plates so I'll eat less, but it doesn't always work out.  :)

 Here are some of the birds I snapped while at Storrie Lake:

This guy just flew up, literally two feet from my face, and grabbed hold of the Wilson Antenna I've attached to the side of the rig outside my window.  Scared me!  He was there for a little bit, very curious about the antenna and ME.  These were taken right through the screen.

And other bird photos:

This is a lesser goldfinch - Jeanne and John and I were watching it, it seemed to have something in it's mouth, and John said there was probably a nest in the tree.

Later I looked out my door to the tree in my campsite, and found the nest, with babies in it:

At least I think that's a baby bird - maybe it's the mom.

Female Bullock's Oriole:

Male Bullock's Oriole:

Here they are together on a post:

Long-billed Curlew at the edge of Storrie Lake:

Western Kingbird:

And the final bird photo, an American Robin.  When I've seen these before, they were rounder and seemed to spend most of their time on the ground looking for food.  Very robust birds.  This bird is smaller and flew from post to post, staying ahead of us on our walk, and flew around a lot.  I didn't think it was a robin, and didn't see a red breast, but Jeanne did see a flash of red.  You can see a little red in this photo.  Now I think it's just a skinny robin, acting weird?  Maybe protecting a nest?

Here's Katie with her fingertips on her chin - "Hummm, what's she doing NOW?"  

I was getting The Palms ready for "take off" the next morning.

Here's one of our sunsets over Storrie Lake:

WELCOME to our newest Follower, Diane!  Diane lives in San Diego, my old stomping grounds.  Lucky you, Diane...   She is a Landscaping Consultant, and has a website (The Yard Fairy - California Friendly Landscaping Help and Advice)  as well as a blog (Angel with Dirty Fingernails - Low Water Landscaping Blog).    Thanks for following along with us, Diane, we're happy to have you aboard!  :)

Next post I have a mechanical systems question for all you people who know about those things. I've done what I could to try to find the problem, and before I spend $$$ at Camping World, I thought I'd see if you have any ideas.  :)

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

TV antenna upgrade - Hi, Jack!

I decided to do an upgrade from my original Winegard antenna with the Wingman attachment.  I was getting pretty good reception getting over-the-air channels in most places, but I wanted a little more range and clearer channels.  So...   Hello, Jack.

John, whom I met last year at Bluewater Lake State Park, is here at Storrie Lake - he's our Camp Host in the South Circle - and he said he wanted to know how it worked when installed because he was thinking about getting one, too.  We talked about the installation, and he agreed to help when it arrived at the campground by UPS.

The Jack Antenna arrived on Tuesday, and that night I attached the brackets to the Jack Antenna so it would be ready to go.  The next morning, John walked over and while I was getting my camera, he climbed up on the roof, removed the old antenna and laid it on the roof.   He then attached the new antenna, and that was it. Easy, peasy.

I was getting all three broadcast channels, ABC, NBC and CBS and also PBS.  But ABC wasn't coming in well - it was pixilated and came and went.  After the Jack was installed I went down and checked the channel, and it was super clear and constant, so the new antenna was a success.

I'm putting the link on my right sidebar, and also into The Palms Store.  If you buy one, I'd love it if you'd go through that link to Amazon.com - check prices, though.  John found it on sale elsewhere.

Below are the photos of the install with explanations of what was done - and some great photos of John.  Well, actually he didn't want to be the star of the show, so I didn't get too much of him.  :)

This is the box it came in:

It comes with more hardware than we needed, because we just replaced the top of the antenna.  We didn't need to do any re-wiring, and placed the Jack on the existing antenna mast.  I think there is other hardware here that would be used to mount the Jack directly on the roof.

Here's the old antenna, it actually did a good job for me, but I wanted to get a little more coverage:






Here John is holding the cotter pin rings he removed from the old antenna.  They were in good condition, so we re-used them, as well as the cotter pins.

The Winegard Antenna with the Wingman attachment have been removed from the antenna mast:

For some reason, the two "poles," I think they are called the mast, were different heights:

See how the one on the right is right up to the top of the plastic thingie, and the left side is shorter?  The cotter pins are also shown:

If you get one of these and the mast is different sizes, don't worry, the Jack will still fit.  The metal bracket that is attached to the Jack has two rows of two holes, and the taller mast fits in the upper hole, the lower mast fits into the lower hole, so the Jack is level and attached securely with the two cotter pins and rings.  Here John is lowering the Jack with the attached bracket onto the existing mast:

 The package comes with this grease to put into the coax cable ends:

John filled the coax cable end with the grease, and then screwed it back into the new Jack Antenna:

I went down to check out ABC on channel 7.1 and the picture and sound were 100 percent clear, no pixilating, no losing the picture and sound intermittently, etc.  So I considered the upgrade a success and decided to keep the Jack Antenna.

This is how it looks:

Two other things that are better with this antenna than the older Winegard - it's very light and takes up less area, so it shouldn't have a problem in the wind.  I used to bring the antenna down flat on the roof in high winds because I was worried it might break.

The other thing that I like is that the Jack is installed with the "arrow" side pointing toward the front of The Palms - the rear, flat side points to the TV stations.  It's set so that the notch on the ceiling turning mechanism with the handle inside The Palms is the same directional setup as the Jack.  The notch points toward the kitchen, and so does the flat side of the Jack, so I'll always know the notch points to the stations - I don't know if that makes sense...  Maybe you have to see it to understand what I'm trying to say.

Before, with the Winegard, it wasn't situated that way, and I had labels showing the dinette, couch, kitchen and cab stuck on the ceiling around the mechanism with the directional handle.  The antenna was 90 degrees off from the inside mechanism notch.  So...  for a person like me who can never remember which way the antenna is pointing, I can now take down my labels.

And here is moi - showing off my new Jack Antenna (excuse the sloppy camping clothes, it was hot, and I was comfortable, as usual):

And that's it.  Thanks, John, for helping. (Actually John did all the work and figured it all out while I took the pictures.  That's fair, right?  LOL)  It's fun to do these little upgrades from time to time.

I've seen a lot of RVing friends while here at Storrie Lake.  Of course I see Jeanne (and Riley) every day for our walks, and this morning Jeanne invited me over for home-made scones.

I didn't think I liked scones until I tasted these.

And then she gave me a package of three scones to put in my freezer for another day.  :)


OMG, they were delicious, super flaky and "just right" sweetness - and now I have the recipe!  And three more in the freezer.  Yeaaaa,  thanks, Jeanne!

I've visited with John quite a bit, too.  He's usually out and about, either riding his bike throughout the park, or doing his Super Camp Host duties here in my loop.  He's got to be the best Camp Host I've seen, our area looks great.  He is always sweeping, raking, cleaning and hosing the empty campsites to get them ready for the next campers.  Nice!  I've enjoyed getting to know you better, John.

Last week I had a nice visit with Nancy.  She stopped over at Storrie Lake for one night on her way to another location, and came over for a visit.  We haven't seen each other since Quartzsite, so it was great to catch up.  Then she stopped over for a quick good-bye the next morning.  We always enjoy getting together, and of course, Nancy is one of Katie's favorite people so everyone was happy.  It was great to see you, Nancy.

The WINS were also here for a few nights, and I was able to catch up a little with Trish and Carol and Margaret while Jeanne and I were walking the dogs.  It was good to see them again, too, and see what they were up to.

Donna and Bob are also here, up at the other end of the campground; we met up with them while they were driving by and the next day walked up to their campsite for a visit.  It's always good to catch up with them - they like taking their Jeep out to see the local sights and find new geocaches; check out their website for some great photos of their day trips.

We have one more day here, then we're moving on.  I've sure enjoyed Storrie Lake this year and will be back before the summer is over.   I have more photos from the park, so I'll have another post or two from this area.

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