One Million Pageviews - WOW - and Morphy Lake Critters

 

I remember way back, a number of years ago, I didn't think I'd ever get 1,000,000 Pageviews.  Some other bloggers I read had passed that mark, and I wasn't surprised, but never thought Me and My Dog ...and My RV! would get that many views.

I need to REALLY thank my readers for stopping in day after day, even when (lately) I'm not giving much back.  So,

I can't tell you how much I appreciate your continued support;  although this blog is a travel journal for me, I'm so pleased that other people enjoy following me and Katie.  I don't know if I'd still be posting in a blog if not for all my loyal readers.

Now to catch up!

STORRIE LAKE STATE PARK, NEW MEXICO

After leaving Elephant Butte, Katie and I stopped in Albuquerque to get gas for the truck at Costco, then headed on to Storrie Lake State Park, NM.   The weather was cooler, but still pretty warm.  We lasted for two weeks in, six days out, and two more weeks in, which is the regulation.  As on BLM and Forest Lands, the maximum stay is 14 days.   Then you have to leave the park for six days.

The good thing about Storrie Lake is that there's a town, Las Vegas, NM, with a Wal-mart three miles away.  It's SO convenient, but there's only one place to overnight while in town for the six nights, and that's the Wal-mart.  They are wonderful about it.  I've never heard a complaint from Wal-mart or another RVer.  I know we RVers aren't supposed to stay more than one night at a cooperating business, but I think the business we give them must factor into their decision to let us stay longer.

I always leave their parking lot in the morning and go into town, to the library, there's a good health food store where I got local honey, etc.  There's also a nice laundromat in town, which is clean and large enough that I've never had to wait.  Just walking around the old town is nice.

I try to get one household/RV task done each day, then drive to a park or somewhere that I can park for the day, and around 5ish I head back to Wal-Mart, always parking far from the store. 

The town is really old and has lots of history.  I was going to use my next 6 days out of the park walking around with my camera, capturing all the old buildings which are just beautiful.  Some are not being kept up, it's a poor town, but the architecture is still beautiful and can still be appreciated.

Because it was so hot, when my second two-week stay in the park was done, we headed northwest and I didn't get my photos of the Las Vegas buildings.  Maybe next time.

Okay, so...   I do have photos of Storrie Lake, but I'll post them next time.  While we were at Storrie Lake, I met up with a new friend, Bill, who said he always drove to Morphy Lake, another New Mexico State Park nearby, when he was at Storrie Lake.  It's higher in altitude and the temps were cooler than where we were.  It's a very small area, and the road there is so narrow it's scary - I would NEVER try to bring The Palms up that road unless it was being blocked at one end for my safe passing.   And of course, that will never happen.  But the lake is gorgeous, and there are campsites for tent camping that would be really nice.  Good fishing, good temps, a beautiful area.

So we decided to take a drive up there to get out of the heat.  Katie and I jumped into Bill's truck and off we went, thankfully HE was driving!  Here's Bill, photo posted with his permission.  I'll bet some of you know him - super nice guy.

We arrived at the lake and parked in one of the spaces in front of the lake.  Then Bill noticed they were stocking the lake with trout:

We walked over and watched them.  Some of the fish were good sized, and would be legal catches.

I've never seen the stocking procedure before - they just lift up the gates on the truck and they FLOW out in all the water right into the lake.  It was pretty cool to see.  I didn't get any good shots of the trout - they were moving around too much, probably so happy to be FREE!

But I did get photos of two other kinds of fish.  There are also some Koi that we saw right there at the edge of the lake.

Look at the blue and white fish below.  He was pretty, maybe 12 inches or larger, and the only one we saw that was this color.  I don't know what kind of fish he is.

The insect below is called a Beautiful demoiselle.  There were tons of them flying right above the water.  I got two photos that were pretty clear:

Here's another Beautiful demoiselle:

Morphy Lake was just FULL of living creatures.  I've never seen anything like it.   The next picture is teeming with minnows:

Here are more minnows at the top of the photo with some tadpoles in the middle and more Beautiful demoiselles at the bottom:

There were TONS of frogs here.  They were the kind that squeaked when they felt danger, before they jumped.   The next photos are of the tadpoles that were growing into frogs.  They were good sized - probably somewhere around three inches long.  Some had their tails still, some were losing their tails and growing legs.  I remember collecting tiny tadpoles from the creek when I was young, and watching them morph into frogs.  I haven't seen that since then.

Here are some full grown frogs - they let out the strangest squeak before they jumped into the water for safety.

Three frogs sunbathing - aren't they sleek and beautiful?

Here's a larger photo of the one above, showing more of the frogs at the water's edge:

The lake edge was also full of crayfish - I think that's what they're called - that were beautiful.  It looked like there were different kinds.  Look at this beauty:

Across the lake we saw a Great Blue Heron - Bill spotted him.  I had to zoom in all the way on my camera to even find him over there, but finally focused on him:

It was a warm day, even up at Morphy Lake, and I was so surprised to turn around and see Katie walking around in the water, exploring.  She's never done that before on her own.  She actually had muddy legs!  She was having such a great time! 

Look at that mud!  She was doing a little "rolling" in the mud, too.

Bill always hikes around the lake when he visits Morphy, but I wasn't willing to climb over rocks, etc. - there wasn't a good trail, and I was worried about Katie, so we just went a little way until the easy part ended and there were some large boulders blocking us.  Then we climbed up to the road and walked back down to the truck.

On the way out in the truck, Bill (he's got the BEST vision!) spotted this guy - he's a  Kaibab Squirrel.  They have tufts of fur sticking up from the top of their large ears, and white on the underside of their tails.  When they run along with their tails in the air, you can really see the white.  This was a new critter for me.  Bill stopped the truck so I could get some photos. When he got out of the truck, the squirrel had run down to the lake and was drinking, but I wasn't able to move Katie, get the camera, climb out of the truck and focus until he was on his way back into the forest.  I feel fortunate to have gotten these four shots:

And the last photo is of a tiny Antelope Squirrel - it looks like she's a female who has a batch of babies at home in her nest:

Although I'll probably never stay at Morphy Lake because of the narrow roads and small campsites, it is sure worth a visit to see this beautiful place!

In my next post, I'll show you the best of the photos I got at Storrie Lake.

Thanks, everyone, for continuing to follow along with me and Katie, and to have been a part of our One Million Pageviews!  Have a great Wednesday - Social Security Wednesday for me!  Yay!  :) 

Goodbye to Elephant Butte State Park

Here's a photo of our site at South Monticello, where I got all the photos of the lizards.  It was getting really hot, and even though we had an electric site and could run the air conditioner, it was just too hot to stay longer.

When I was backing into the site, I could see something weird in the back-up camera display.  I stopped The Palms and got out to see what it was.  Someone before us collected a lot of rocks and organized them according to type, and they were pretty cool to see.  I enjoyed seeing them every day and left them for the next camper to enjoy, too.

First there were regular rocks, probably river rocks?  They were pretty and all different colors.  They were arranged from smallest to largest. 

Next were flat, slate type rocks.  You could make a nice slate patio with these.

The last group were the largest, and they all had  fossil impressions.  (From CSUS, Lab #1: Fossil Preservation:  Imprints are left when an organism is pressed into soft sediment. The original hard parts may be gone, dissolved after burial. Very shallow imprints are called impressions, as of the fern leaf. Larger organisms may leave molds or casts. A mold is the imprint left by the organism, and is a negative of the organism. Molds may be external - of the exterior of the shell, as on the slab of snail and clam external molds.)  

I've never seen these on our walks, whoever left this collection must have taken a LOT of walks in the area.

You just never know what you're going to come across!

Below is one of our last sunsets.  Looking east it was pastel colors,

and looking west,  the sun had just gone down, leaving us with a beautiful sky.

And that's it for Elephant Butte State Park, South Monticello Point Campground for this year.  Onward to the north!

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

Lizards at Elephant Butte

This is just a quick post to show you some of the lizards at South Monitcello Point Campground (SoMoPo) in Elephant Butte State Park in New Mexico.   I'm not a lizard researcher, I just like to see them all, so I didn't check to see what kinds of lizards they are.

This first guy was just beautiful in the sunshine.  I've never seen one so colorful.  

This next guy was kind of exciting to see, too, because I think he's a Horned Lizard.  I've never seen one of these.  He's a little fatty and has horns.  He wasn't moving very fast, just went a little way, stopped and rested, moved again, etc.  These are the best photos I could get:

Can you see his little horns?

Here's another lizard - he was a good size guy with super long toes:

This lizard has pretty distinct markings:

And a very long tail when compared to the others:

And a final lizard - he had pretty markings, but I couldn't get his face.  Those aren't eyes on the top of his head, I think he's wearing goggles:

They are all a little different.  Most had some colors, but it wasn't obvious unless they were in the sunlight.  They had different feet, faces, tails, etc.  Interesting creatures.

Katie has always gone nuts over lizards - she gets so excited when she sees one.  She'll try to chase them with her tail wagging like mad, of course she's on a leash so she can't chase too far, poor baby.   Lately, though, she doesn't seem to see them like she used to.  I saw all these before she did.  The movement isn't registering, so I'm wondering if shes starting to lose her eyesight, or her peripheral vision.  I hope not.  She's only ten, which isn't that old for a small dog.

That's it on the lizards.  I love to photograph them.

From me and Katie, have a great Father's Day tomorrow to all you fathers.  And for everyone out there, well, we have Fathers - whether they are still with us, or with us in our hearts - and we can remember them tomorrow with love.  :)

Want to see a video of the inside of The Palms? :)

While Jeanne and I were doing our Arizona BLM camping, Bob Wells, from Cheap RV Living, came to visit the group for a couple of days.  He was filming some videos and asked us if we'd like to do some, talk about RVing and maybe show how we live.  Most of us said yes - I was nervous about it, but heck, I wouldn't get this chance again, right?  Bob's a really genuine guy and I was pretty sure he wouldn't post anything that made me or The Palms look bad, or embarrass me.  
So, the next morning he came over with his video gear and we filmed.   When we started, I was still nervous, but when he called me Marbara, it  kind of broke the ice.  He said, "Did I just call you Marbara?"   LOL  Then we started again.  He first asked me questions while we were standing outside The Palms, then we went inside and I gave him a tour - for you guys.  :)

Sedona/Cottonwood/Camp Verde Boondocking Photos

I'm so behind posting photos - I'm going to put a bunch here that I took in the Sedona/Cottonwood/Camp Verde area when Jeanne and I were boondocking there on Forest Land. The weather was great, and we had a really good time.

Sedona has a Farmer's Market on the weekend and I found some great local honey there.  This is the beekeeper/owner of the honey that I bought.  I've never been a honey person, but there were a couple of booths at Quartzsite, one in the Big Tent and one outside.  They had the BEST honey.  Next year I'm going to buy gallons!  Now I'm looking for local, fresh honey wherever I go, and this man had a couple of kinds that I really liked.

While we were walking around the town of Sedona we walked past some REAL flowers - not desert blooms, but real city flowers like my mom used to grow, and like I had, too, when I had a house.  I had to snap photos:

When I lived in Camino, CA, I had a hillside that was full of these Iris.  It was beautiful when they were in bloom.  I used to cut them for a large vase on the dining room table.  

One day while camping in Cottonwood, it was SUPER windy and Katie had to go potty.  I put her Doggles on her, and she was a good girl and kept them on until she was ready to climb back into The Palms.  It's been a while since we've needed them, but that sand was really blowing!

Here's Katie yawning with her Doggles on.  It's so tiring being famous!

Speaking of Katie, she stepped in a red ant nest again, and here she is holding her leg up in the air.  She was panting like crazy - and looking a little crazy, too - with her ribs heaving in and out.  Her leg was shaking, her tongue was sticking up, and she wouldn't let me near her.  

I prepared the baking soda/water solution in my squirt bottle and waited until she settled down a little.  Every time I tried to get near her, she acted like she was going to bite me.  Finally I got a squirt of the solution on her foot, then more a minute later.  Not long after, she was up and running around.  That stuff is AMAZING!

I had two commenters asking the ratio of baking soda to water and answered them in the comment section.  Thought I'd copy it here for people who don't read comments but could use the info:  "Wil and Zooperson: The recommended ratio is just to make up a paste and apply to the bites. That would work for a person (or a pet that will just lay there and let you smear it on). Since Katie won't let me NEAR her and I do believe she would bite me - she is in so much pain and distress - the first time I watered it down, put it in a clean squirt bottle that's made for ketchup or mustard. I held it above her and just squeezed. She let out a scream when it hit her, but almost immediately calmed down a little, and I squirted more on her foot. The bite was between the pads of her foot, and the liquid landed on the top of her foot, but it dripped down and got the right place. She went from intense pain to normal in an amazingly short time."

We took a drive up to Jerome, AZ one day.  I loved that town, it reminded me of Placerville, CA where I used to live.  It's sitting on the side of a mountain, and all the old buildings have been either kept up really well, or refurbished.  An old, old town which is a tourist attraction now, but there are still homes all around the town.  I'd love to live there.

I didn't see a lot of different birds, but here are a few:

Black-throated Sparrow

Red-tailed Hawk

Verdin - the first bird I checked off in my Field Guide

These flowering cactus plants are the first I saw in 2016.  All of a sudden the plants around us in cottonwood were in bloom.  I thought these were the prettiest:

Now this next picture is kind of creepy, I think.  He looks like a kind of cricket or non-green grasshopper, but he was pretty big.  He blended in well and I'm surprised I saw him.  The "kind of creepy" thing about him is his face.  Don't you agree?

Next - I have to post another hot-air balloon photo.  Everywhere we camped, we saw them, and often they were headed right toward us, or landed on our road.  It was pretty exciting.  They are so large and beautiful, just floating along in the breeze.  I don't get out of bed at the crack of dawn, so I missed a lot of the balloons that other people nearby saw.

And now I have to post some cattle pictures.  It was really fun camping out in the middle of nowhere and having cattle traveling by us.  They would stop, eat, rest, MMMMOOOOOOO, then move on.  I loved having them nearby.  Sometimes I would hear them in the morning, or after I'd gone to bed.

A couple of funny stories:  The first one was when Jeanne and I were camped near some other people and we were all sitting outside in the early evening chatting.  Then we heard REALLY LOUD, AGRESSIVE MOO-ING.  It went on and on, right across the street from our camp sites.  We got up and walked over and saw this huge bull, roaring and roaring and roaring.

It went on forever, and then he walked around behind our campsites:

Still making a LOUD roaring moo-ing noise.  He was obviously in some distress and wanted us to know about it.  Finally he moved on.

A day or so later, look who I saw right below our sites:

There he is - with a cow and new-born calf.  I think the cow was below him in the valley giving birth when he was up on the ridge of the valley across the street making all that racket.  Worried, proud, warning us off?  If I spoke Bull language, I'd probably have a REALLY good story to tell you, but this is as good as it gets.   

Then the other cattle story was when I was going into town and headed down our road.  I had to stop for a real-life cattle crossing:

There was a car in front of me, and when it was coming down the road, some of the cows backed up to give it room to pass.  The other cows just stayed where they were. They weren't moving an inch - look at their faces - "Can't you see we're trying to cross the road?"  They had some calves with them, too.  You can see a white calf hidden behind the large black one above.

After the car passed it was so funny.  The little one started out, then they all just stood there looking at me.  I decided I had all day and was enjoying watching them, so I parked there taking photos until they were all across the road and walking away:

And finally, a beautiful moon-rise one evening.  there were so many gorgeous sunsets and moon rises, but I especially liked this one:

That finishes the pics I wanted to post from Sedona, Cottonwood and Camp Verde in Arizona.  I loved boondocking in all the places we found and I'm sure I'll be back.  There was at least one camping area I didn't travel to, but that's on my list, too, for next time.  It's a beautiful, interesting area with lots to do, and just perfect for doing nothing, too.

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