When our 14 days was up at Lake Havasu, Craggy Wash Campground, Katie
and I packed up and headed north to Camp Verde. We stopped along the
way to visit a friend, S.B., who lives in Congress, AZ. Hi, S.B.! That's a cool
little town, it's where
Al and Kelly had their winter home - which they recently
sold - and I loved the area. S.B. and I had a nice visit, Katie had a nice roll in some fertilizer in his front yard (P.U.!), then Katie and
I continued on our journey north, both happy travelers. But one of us smelled better than the other.
😏
It was such a beautiful drive, we drove through fields of Joshua trees, Saguaro cactus, beautiful flowers along the road, and snow capped mountains in the distance. A nice, relaxing drive. This photo shows some of the terrain and the road ahead:
And the road
directly ahead:
Joshua trees - photos were taken out the window while driving, so these aren't super clear:
A many-armed Saguaro:
Lots of flowers in the center of the road, it looked landscaped, but I'm sure it wasn't.
I had gotten new
glasses at the local Wal-Mart in Lake Havasu City, and was wearing them during
the drive up to Camp Verde. My eyes were KILLING me. I had something
in them, or the prescription was so OFF that I could hardly stand it. I waited a week for whatever it was in my eyes to go away, but it didn't and finally I went to the Cottonwood Wal-Mart. I
was going to have them check my prescription to make sure it was
correct, and also check the written prescription to my new
glasses. First I went to the Pharmacist to see if there were some drops I
could use, and she suggested an eye wash. I decided to try that first,
before putting any more money into getting a new prescription or
glasses.
When I got home, I immediately "washed" my eyes. I've never
done that before, and it wasn't anything like I thought it would be.
Instead of being creepy and awful, it felt so cool and good on my eyes. Immediately they
were better. Weird, huh? I was thinking, wow, I had something in my
eyes, especially the left one, for a WEEK!
Here's me and Katie, talking to
Diana out the window - those are my new glasses.
O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo? That's what I always feel like when I chat out the window. lol
Later I
went back to purchase some eye drops and couldn't even get my cart into
the "Eye Product" area at the end of the aisle. After chatting with
some of the locals waiting to get to the products, I learned that the
pollen was SO BAD right then, that everyone was having problems. I
guess I just had pollen in my eyes? That's never happened to me before, is that what an allergy feels like? I'm sure glad the problem is gone now. Between the wash and the drops,
all is well, and I think the pollen is finally gone.
When
Katie and I arrived at our camp area in Camp Verde, my friend
John warned me
that there were tiny purple ground cover flowers that
stained shoes and dog feet. You can kind of see them here - they were ALL OVER the place!
After walking Katie the first time, the
bottom of my shoes were purple! Luckily it didn't stain anything and
washed off with water. Probably some of the suspicious pollen in the area!
We had some rain and cloudy weather while camped in Camp Verde - I liked this view out my window of the bushes and fields, then low clouds, mountains, sunset, higher clouds and blue sky. It kind of had everything! It was dark on the ground, and light in the sky above the clouds.
One day after the rain, an earth to earth rainbow came out - it was beautiful. And I snapped The Palms right in the middle of it:
Rainbow closeup - it was SO pretty in person:
It was pretty cold, and more snow fell on the San Francisco Mountains in the distance, beyond the Camp Verde hills.
It's been a while since I've had birds in my campsite, and it was nice to see Says Phoebes flitting from branch to branch:
Remember Flat Stanley, the frog at Storrie Lake State Park in New Mexico that was run over on the road? Well, we had our own Flat Lizzy here in Camp Verde. Katie LOVES it when she sees a lizard, she goes bonkers and tries to get it. So far, it's lizards about 500, Katie 0. This is the first one she found that didn't run too fast up a tree or under a bush. It was right next to the yellow painted line in the middle of the road. Pretty little guy. And according to Katie, it smelled
really good! I practically had to drag her away.
And here's the Princess, little Katie, taking a nap on her quilt in the middle of the day.
And finally, I have a small RV fix that Kim, of
The Travels of Kimbo Polo fame, told me about. AND she also gave me the materials! First you need one of the tiny zip ties. This is a little baggie of zip ties she gave me to use:
I don't know about you, but I've read about people going down the freeway and realizing later that the cover for their hot water heater came off while they were traveling. Then they had to order a new one. The circular plastic turning lock thingie, I guess, isn't necessarily that hardy. So... All you do is locate the plastic round lock thingie:
and put a zip tie on it. Easy peasy. That's it! It's horizontal when locked, and with the zip tie, it will stay that way. No turning to a vertical position and slipping through the opening, and then the cover flying off on the highway.
After reading about other people having that issue, I've always wondered when mine would fly off. Now I know - NEVER! By the way, that's a vent guard over the cover, a "
Flying Insect Water Heater Screen." You can get them through Amazon.com. That's where I got mine a few years ago. It stops Mud Daubers and other insects from getting in and building nests, which can cause problems.
So, that's my tip - from Kim to me and from me to you. : )
UPDATE: I was sitting here looking at the photo above, and something didn't seem right. I just went out and tried to get the cover off, and it CAME OFF! I might not have done it right. I texted Kim and I'm waiting for her to look at my photo to see what I did wrong. I'll update here after I hear from her. Maybe not so easy peasy for some of us!
FROM KIM: You still need to put the white
tab all the way down. Also, make the zip tie loop big enough so it can't pull
through. FROM ME: Duh! (red face) That should work.
And from me and Katie, have a great day, everyone!
😊⛰🌧🌈🐸🐦😊
