Last post from Storrie Lake

Katie and I are on our way out of town after completing the 20-hours of service oil change necessary for our new generator warranty.  I'll post about that next time, and I have a really good place in Santa Fe to recommend for RV repairs.

In the meantime, I have a few photos left from Storrie Lake State Park and wanted to post them.

Not a lot of bird sighting this time, but there were a lot of Western Kingbirds nesting.  One morning John was photographing two babies "branch hopping" as he called it.  They can't fly yet, so they are hopping around in the tree where they were hatched. I nabbed a few photos of them, too, for the blog.  They are very fluffy and soft looking.  These are the two babies I saw:

Here's the mom, keeping watch - she was flying around and chirping, very upset that we were there right under her babies:

Here's another one on the water pump in our site - or is it a Say's Phoebe?

I knew right away when Jeanne took down her hummingbird feeders, because all of a sudden I had some hummers visit my feeders.  She's had a lot of the tiny visitors, but I haven't had a lot of luck with hummers here.  All of a sudden, they were visiting and I did get a couple of shots of the little female below.  Because of the storm the night before, I took the feeders off the windows and put them on the table in the shelter.  They got more action there:

And there was a steer in the campsite across from us:

A young wanna-be roper was trying to lasso him with the rope.  Too cute!

And here's Katie, relaxing in her bed on the couch:

Here's a shot of our four rigs, mine, Jeanne's, John's, and Annie's, that I took on one of our walks.  All in a row.  :)

Yesterday Katie and I went into town to gas up the truck, get propane, do laundry and shop at Wal-mart.  When we got back, Nancy came over for a last visit.  Katie, of course, was wiggly with  delight.  Look at that tail wagging - she's seriously planning her next licking attack:

We were up and gone by 8:30 for our 11:00 appointment in Santa Fe.   Afterwards we stopped at a Petco for Katie to get her nails clipped.  I shot a photo through the glass of the grooming area from inside the store so she wouldn't see me.  What a face!  She looks like her world has ended.  But she is always really good, stands still and behaves.  The technician said she was a little cutie-pie.

We're in a Wal-Mart parking lot about 30 minutes north of Santa Fe.  We'll stay here overnight before heading further north tomorrow morning. It's raining a bit, and we've had lots of thunder and lightening:

Next State Park:   Heron Lake!

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

Taking a little walk

Jeanne and Annie and I have been walking the dogs every day, and we've added another walker, Renee - with her two dogs, Harley and Cole.  The five dogs get along so well, and its fun to watch them together.  Here they are walking down to the bridge:

There are frequent stops for kissing, sniffing, peeing and pooping, as well as some grass eating thrown in:

Our walks aren't fast or non-stop, but we sure have a good time.  Here they are waiting for me and Katie when I stopped to get some bird photos:

Sometimes the dogs all spread out, and sometimes they bunch up together; here's Annie and Renee and all the dogs with Riley taking the lead:

We met up with a huge frog, too, but he's seen better days.  Meet Flat Stanley:

We say hello to him every day when we pass.  You can see how large he is in this photo with Riley - don't worry, we just called him over for perspective - he didn't touch the frog:

When we got to the end of the road by the almost empty river onTuesday, there was a rig in the turn-around, and the woman came out with her 3-year-old dog, Mickey, who was so happy to see other dogs.  Our dogs all liked him too, and there was much sniffing and wiggling and tail wagging going on.

The dogs wandered around for a bit while the people chatted, then we gathered them all up again and headed back down to our campsites.

Some walks are more interesting than others, and this was a really nice walk for us all with the addition of Renee, Harley, Cole, and then Mickey and his mom.

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

Wordless Wednesday - Faces in Everyday Places

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

The 4th of July, 2014

Jeanne, Annie, John and I had a little bar-b-que in Jeanne's shelter on the 4th of July. It was really nice, and fun.  I was worried about the storms coming my way, but the girls have this storm stuff down pretty well and weren't worried.  We were meeting at 4 o'clock, and the weather turned out to be beautiful, just perfect.

We had bar-b-qued hamburgers and hot dogs, potato salad, macaroni salad, chips and dip and deviled eggs, with lemon bars for desert.  Yum.  I wish I had a plate full right now.  I took a photo right before we started to eat, but the table-of-food photo seems to be lost. 

Here are the photos of our bar-b-que:

Jake is such a leaner - here he is leaning on me:

And he also likes to stand on people's feet - below are Jake's and Annie's:

Jeanne brought out some of her home-made dog cookies for the pups - Katie LOVES them, and she got two:

Katie has never been obnoxious about taking treats from me, but for fun we practice "gentle" treat taking, and she's doing a good job as you can see:

And here she is, wanting to get out of the stroller after lunch and be down with the other dogs.  Of course, I let her down. 

Katie is reallly enjoying being with the other dogs, and this morning Renee (who we met at Bluewater Lake State Park) arrived with her two dogs, Harley and Cole.  I'll get photos of them for you to see, they are so cute.  Harley is pretty old, and the coolest dog.  Anyway, Katie wanted to meet them, and she let them sniff her, and she tried to sniff Cole, too, but he was wagging his tail so much Katie couldn't get in a good sniff.  But she did sniff noses with both Harley and Cole, and I was so pleased that she isn't afraid of them.

Which reminds me, I have to tell you what happened yesterday between Katie and Jake.  The three of us women were chatting in Jeanne's shelter and our dogs were there.  I guess something happened or someone moved behind the picnic table, and both Katie and Jake were startled.  Jake must have made a move toward Katie, she growled, bared her teeth and thrust her head and body toward Jake.  He was just sitting on his haunches, looked at her, raised his left foot and put it on Katie's neck/head and pressed down.  Totally stopped her.  He didn't make a sound or any other moves.  Katie was so surprised, she squeeled and ran behind my chair.  It was so funny.  Jake is such a cool dog.

I sure enjoyed watching Katie and Jake and Harley and Cole this morning.  We are all walking this afternoon if it doesn't rain, so we'll add Riley to the mix.  I hope to get some good photos of them all together.

One more photo - John took this of the three of us and our dogs yesterday during our walk, he's a great photographer and has good equipment - nice photo, John.  Thanks!

From me and Katie, have a great Tuesday, everyone!

Sunset, storm and a move

Boy have we had some weather here!  Super hot temps and the worst hail storm I've ever been in.

The other evening we had a gorgeous sunset, look at the way the sun, behind the clouds, is barely lining the edge of the clouds - it was just beautiful:

Tuesday night we had a really strong storm, lightening all around us, constant thunder, and then the hail started.  It was so loud inside The Palms.  Katie and I were in bed in our over-the-cab bunk and after a few minutes, Katie came up from the foot of the bed and crawled under the covers close to me.  She doesn't shake or show fear when it storms, but this one got to her.

I woke up before it started and saw flashing lights outside the dinette window.  I thought something with the Rangers or Police was going on near me, so I climbed down and opened the shade to see what was happening and it was lightening on the northern horizon.  Constant, flashing lights from end to end of the northern horizon.

I went back to bed and looked out the upper bunk windows from time to time.  Clear view to the lightening on the horizon.  Suddenly the rain and hail started and I pulled the curtains over again, and there was absolutely no visibility - total solid rain and hail.  It was really something. After a bit I started wondering if I was going to be stuck in mud, my site was so large it wasn't graveled all over and my front wheels were at the edge of the site.  I climbed down and started the engine and moved The Palms back, into the site more, just in case.    I also took a photo out the front window, it looked like it was snowing:

In the morning I went outside, and our tires were fine, still on solid ground, and look at the hail that was still on the ground:

See The Palms below - in the distance?

I walked over to the electric loop to check on Jeanne and especially Annie - this was her first storm in Bliss, her new rig, and I wondered if she and Jake and the kitties made it through all the rain without any leaks.  Luckily we all made it though without any damage or leaks.  (I had some tiny holes punched through some trim pieces - eight holes - but I filled them with Goop).

As I was walking over I stopped to talk to the man in the site next to Jeanne's, and he mentioned he was leaving that morning.  I was anxious to get into that campground area, so after checking on the girls, I went back and packed up and drove over to Jeanne's site and parked with her, facing the neighbor's site.  When he pulled out, we pulled in. (I've been keeping my eye on the sites here and hit pay dirt.) 

(Although I liked the site I was in and felt lucky to get it, there were two more thunderstorms predicted and I wasn't crazy about the possibility of getting stuck there.  Also, it 's such a large site and within the site is a "day use" area with a picnic table.  With the 4th of July coming, I was a little worried about a crowd coming in.  I would have welcomed them - and usually these large family groups are really good neighbors - but I'd rather be alone and have it a bit quieter.)

I love the site I'm in now, it has wonderful views and so far it's great. It looks really pretty in this photo, but it's actually kind of plain.  Here at Storrie Lake the sites have water and garbage cans in each site, and that's very convenient.  These sites are also pretty level.

I have a couple of photos of me and the dogs, the first one Annie took for me with my camera, while I was sitting in the shelter  holding Katie, and Jake and Riley were close enough to get all three dogs in one photo.   As you can see, they are all looking in different directions and ignoring each other, which is what usually happens.  They all get along, but don't interact much or play with each other.

This next photo, I've been wanting to get for a while.  Lately when I'm busy at the dinette, eating or on the computer, Katie will come up on the bench seat and force her nose under my arm and rest her head on me, wanting to snuggle.  I actually took this picture of the computer screen in front of us, acting like a mirror.  She will close her eyes and go to sleep if I don't make her move.  She's such a little baby sometimes.  :)   I was eating an English muffin when she snuck that little nose through (notice my cool locket?).

Tomorrow is the 4th of July and we're having a bar-b-que pot luck.  Should be fun!  We've had huge black clouds coming our way all afternoon and the storm just started - I can hear thunder and see lightning, and hear occasional hail.  I'm hoping we won't get a lot - they are predicting penny-sized hail and that could really do some damage, the last storm had pea-sized hail. :(

From me and Katie, have a safe and fun 4th of July, everybody!  :)