Hurricane, UT - Being blown away in Walmart's parking lot

Today was a very satisfying day.  This morning I hooked up to the sewer and dumped the tanks.  Katie and I took one more short walk, then I vacuumed the couch and floors while I still had electricity.  I don't think Zion has any hook-ups.

Leaving the campground.  

I wish my camera had a 3-D setting to show the layers in this photo.

We went into the town of Hurricane, UT and found a laundromat, where I did tons of laundry.  That's always a good job to get done.

On the way to the laundromat we drove past an RV sales and service shop, so when I was done folding and putting away and hanging everything up, I drove back there to see if they could change the oil on The Palms.  They said they don't change oil, they use a shop down the street, so I went there and they took The Palms right away.  I got the oil changed and tires checked, fluids checked, all that stuff.  So now when I head down to Arizona, I won't worry about having to get those things done there.

Then we drove to the local Walmart where I did my grocery shopping. 

We are over-nighting here tonight - it's windy as hell (excuse my French, but it is), and there's lightning in the sky.  I just looked out and there was a whole line of lightning showing up behind the mountains to my right.  I sure hope the light fixtures in this parking lot stay grounded.  They are swaying in the wind. 

Today was beautiful, but this wind tonight - wow!  About 8:30 I took Katie outside to go potty, and when I opened the door, it FLEW out of my hand and SLAMMED into the side of the rig.  It actually cracked the plastic thingy that the door hooks into when open.  I was happy there wasn't a hole in the side of The Palms.   Incredible.  No rain, though.  It did rain last night for about ten minutes, but nothing yet tonight.   I don't see any stars in the night sky, so it must be cloudy. 

This was the sunset from the Walmart parking lot this evening:

I'm watching TV and typing by the generator, but will turn it off soon and go to bed.  Another RV just pulled up alongside me, and I don't want the generator to bother them.

Tomorrow I'm going to drive over to Zion and see if I can get in early.  If not, there are a few RV parks here in town I'll check out.

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

Final night at Sand Canyon State Park, UT

I found a new use for my camera - I can use it as binoculars.  Since the zoom is 18x, if I want to see something close up from The Palms that's down the road quite a ways, I can aim the camera and zoom it in.  So look out, keep your curtains closed.  :)  Just kidding.

This morning I saw some rustling in a bush across from The Palms, and I got the camera out to see what it was, and I could see the bushes very clearly.  I didn't see what made it rustle, but I've wanted a pair of small binoculars, and this camera is exactly that.  I could use it at a game or show, etc., to see the action better. Cool, huh?

Although this campground has full hook-ups, there is also an OHV accessible campground with some hookups and some primitive camping areas, too.  These are the facilities in the campground I'm in:

Restroom

Five shower rooms - nice because you can always find a shower that's available.

Inside of shower room. 

I really like these showers, because they are private rooms with hooks for hanging, a bench to put things on, and the outer room stays dry.  The shower was hot (a tiny bit too hot for me) and is a push type knob.  When you push the knob, the water sprays out in a good spray for about 8 seconds. Then you have to push it again each time for another spray.  

The rest room and showers were very clean.

Isn't this a pretty lizard?

Three birds in the bush.

Did I hear a critter?

 I think I see him!

 There he is!

 Our last sunset at Sand Canyon.

Did you know some Utah Freeways are 80 miles per hour?

Tomorrow we leave Sand Canyon.  I need to do laundry and then shop for groceries, so I plan to overnight at Walmart and then see if we can get a "walk-in" site at Zion on Wednesday morning.  Our reservation starts on Saturday.

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

Our LONG walk and Katie's treasures

Friday afternoon a transformer in the park blew, and we all lost our electricity.  I wasn't sure if it was me or the parks' electricity, so I called the office and got the fast busy signal.  Their phone lines are dependent on electricity and weren't working, so I knew it wasn't me.  Then I went out and unplugged The Palms so I wouldn't ruin anything if there was a surge when it came back on.

Luckily it wasn't too hot that afternoon, it was in the 80s, and we did fine without electricity.  My computer works with the inverter, and I didn't need anything else. Isn't it nice to live in a self contained house?

It went off around 4:30 and came back at 7:30, just in time for the good TV shows.  

Katie and I took another loooong walk yesterday.  We took off in a couple of different directions, retraced our steps, and then I decided to walk up the road to the parking lot, which I finally found, and from there walk across the levee to the beach area at the other end.

Well... when we were about half way along the levee, the beach in the distance kept seeming farther and farther away.  I was thinking, if we make it to the beach, then we are going to have to walk alllllllll the way back.  Not good.  Katie was lagging, I think the rocky path was slowing her down.  I never know if what we're walking on is bothering the little pads on her feet, but she was starting to pant a little and I was getting tired, so we turned around and headed back to the beginning of the levee.

I carried Katie part of the way and part of the way back. She seemed happy about that.  Not only was she not walking, she had a better view up in my arms than on the ground.

When we got back to the parking lot, we went to the restroom and I made a cup of my hands and got her some water, and she drank it all, so she was thirsty.  Then we walked back to the rig; we were both very happy to be home again.

These long walks are new to us, and obviously we need the exercise, but walking an hour and a half in 80+ degree temps is pretty good for a 66 years old woman and a tiny dog, I think.  Three and a half years ago, before I lost 25 pounds, I could not have begun to walk like this.  A lot of our walks here are at a slight incline, and back then I would have been so out of breath, and my legs would have really felt the burn. Today I was breathing and climbing just fine.  I was pretty happy about that, even though I was glad we turned around before we got to the beach.

Here are all the treasures Katie found on our walk:

Katie finds interesting stuff on the ground that I'd never see. I think this was a small critter.  She found three of them along the way on the Levee.  I don't think they were fish.

Katie found this huge worm, too, by our campsite. Horn worm?  That's Katie's nose by it's tail, she was very interested in it.

Katie loves these lizards.  They go into a bush, and she'll stand and watch and wait for them to come out.  Of course, they don't, and we move on.

Views along the way.   These are from our walk back along the levee.

And back to camp.

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

Photos of Flora and Fauna in Sand Canyon

WELCOME to our new Follower, Sharon!  Hi, Sharon, I didn't see you at first, since you don't have a photo; sorry I missed you when you first started following.  Sharon has a blog about "life and travels with the dogs" which looks like it's all set up, but she hasn't posted yet.  She has a beautiful dog named Katie who is shown on her blog.  Thanks for following along with us, Sharon, we're happy to have you on board!  :)

Katie and I took another long walk yesterday.  While we were walking I was looking at all the flowers and bushes in the sand surrounding us.  At first glance, it just looks like a bunch of bushes, but when you look closer, there are a lot of different kinds of plants here.

If I didn't have Katie, I wouldn't take half the walks I take, and I wouldn't walk half as far on each one.  Without this blog, I'd never be looking around so much for interesting things to take pictures of for that day's post. I'd miss a lot.  And if I didn't have this new camera, I wouldn't be able to take such wonderful photos.

The following photos of the desert plants may not be interesting to some readers, but I wanted to remember them, so here they are. The first one is the only cactus I've seen here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I've mentioned before how quiet it is here.  As we were walking, I could hear a bee buzzing across the road, and I went over to get a photo.  It's so quiet, you can hear a bee buzzing or an insect flying.  I also got a few photos of birds and a little lizard.

 Ant Hill - no ants - must have been nap time.

 Here's our Bee

 Bird  with long beak

 Bird with tufted head - if you click on him, you 'll see how cute he is.

Lizard - at the bottom/middle.  He's hard to see.

Katie keeps flushing these guys out of the bushes.

And that's what we saw on our walk yesterday.

I wanted to say something about Facebook.  I do have a Facebook account, but I don't use it.  When I first started on Facebook, I just couldn't believe all the "stuff" people had on my wall.  Their political opinions, stuff I was not interested in and didn't want on MY Facebook wall, all the little day to day things people (and their friends) were doing.  I couldn't believe the volume of information.  I really didn't like it and there was not enough control.  I know things are different now, but I just have a negative feeling about Facebook.  I ended up unfriending everyone, then I felt bad, I didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings.  It wasn't that I didn't like them, there was just too much stuff on my wall from too many people.

I know having a blog like this, which is open to the world, might seem even worse, but I feel I can control exactly what goes into my posts.  Also, if I don't like a comment, I can delete it.  That hasn't happened, but just in case, I do have that control.  I didn't feel that way about Facebook.

So, I have had people want to "friend" me, and I don't respond.  I'd rather be cyber-friends through my blog and yours rather than Facebook.  For now, anyway.  So if you've sent a "friend" request to me, I'm not going to be your friend on Facebook, but I'll be a great friend on Blogger.

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

Life is good

It's so nice and warm and quiet here.   Right now it's 85 degrees with no wind.

First, I want to post two photos of my grand kids from Vacaville, Lauren and Drew.  They were in their Aunt Allyson's wedding last week, and Kristy sent me these photos.  The first one is so cute, and the second one makes me laugh every time I look at it.

 Lauren and Drew - so pretty and handsome

Silly Lauren and Drew

Sometimes when my kids are taking photos of their children, they will say, "Silly face!" and everyone in the shot makes a funny face.  That's what a professional photographer does that my son's family uses. It loosens everyone up.   I'm pretty sure this one is a Silly Face photo. :)

Yesterday Katie and I went for a walk, and we ended up walking for more than an hour and a half.  We went around all the campsites, which are loops and tiered.  I wanted to see what kind of view they all had, in case I decide to stay here the additional four days until Zion. Some have a view of the lake, above us, and others have a  view of the mountains across the valley from us. I might want to change to another site with a different view.

Then we went into a little wash that's between the camping area and the parking lot for the lake.  I still don't know how the cars/boats get up there, we didn't find the road in and out, but we didn't walk to the end of the lot.  It must be at that end.  From a distance it looked kind of steep to go up the side of the wash, but when we got there, it was pretty easy to climb up in a few spots to the parking lot.  (Sometimes I feel like such a little old lady!)  It's a HUGE parking lot. 

Here are some photos of the reservoir:

 Sand Canyon Reservoir

   

 This is a close-up of the photo above it. 

The color of the rock is reflected in the water.

The photo right above this one - can you see the color change of the water right in the middle - across on the other side?  That's how much my new camera will enlarge.  18X.   We were standing in the same place when I snapped both photos.  In the first photo you can't even see the ducks.  I love this camera!!!

Is this a chipmunk?  I'm used to seeing squirrels, but haven't seen a chipmunk in years.  They have holes in the sand that they dive into when we are around.  They run really fast!  There are also tiny rabbits that scurry around so fast I haven't gotten a good look at one yet.  Just a tiny flash over the sand with a small white tail.  The little guy below, though, runs, then stops and stands up and freezes.  Do they think I can't see them if they don't move?  It's easy to photograph them. :)

 Desert Critter

The next desert critter is:

 Katie and her shadow

 Katie the Sphinx

Doesn't she look like the Sphinx?

Sunset

Just taking it easy and enjoying the landscapes and warm weather...  Life is good.

From Me and My Dog, have a good Thursday, everyone!  :)