I know this isn't a "Foodie Blog," but...

I love that photo of the baby burro so much, I didn't want to do another post and cover him up.  So I copied him over to my scrolling screen saver, so I can see him more often.  :)

Anyway, I go through periods where I'm not that interested in food, a frozen Oikos yogurt for lunch or dinner (or both) is enough, along with a good breakfast.  Other times I'm ravenous and want to eat everything in the fridge.  That's what happened yesterday.  I wanted something good, rich, and something with leftovers for the next day (today). 

Every once in a while I surprise myself with a really good meal, and that happened last night.  I was searching on-line for something new to make for dinner and found the old "grilled foil packet" dinner.  I don't have a barbecue, but did more research to find out the oven times and temps that would work.  I have a bunch of tilapia in the freezer and this worked perfect!  I did this once before, but it has been a long time, and I'm not sure if it was on the road, or back in San Diego.  But this will be a "go-to" meal from now on.  There are no dishes to wash, it's fast and easy, and it's great for using leftovers, too.

This is what it looked like plated before I devoured it:

This is not what the recipes I found called for, just what I had on hand and what sounded really good.  The best recipe I found had sliced zucchini where I put the sliced apple, and I would have liked that, but didn't have any.  The only fresh veggie I had was asparagus.  

Above is one packet all wrapped and ready to go onto the baking pan.  The other one shows this:  Two slices of onion, two slices of Fuji apple, tilapia fillet, two slices of tomato, and on the side some raw asparagus and artichokes hearts from a large bottle (in water).  Then I sprinkled Italian dressing over them all, more pepper and a little grated sea salt.  (I just realized I have a banana, that might have been really good, too.  And a sliced peach would be great.)  I baked them both at 450 degrees for 25 minutes.  Perfect, and so delicious! 

The thing I like about these is that you can put almost anything in them, fish, chicken, pork chops, and whatever you want for veggies, maybe some fruit or even potato slices.  I ate every single bit. One thing, though, put the packet on a cookie sheet with sides - mine seemed to leak the dressing and juices out onto the pan, and I was really glad I didn't just put them on the rack.  That would have made a real mess.

This afternoon I took the foil wrapped package out of the fridge and arranged the food on a paper plate with another under it and another plate on top and microwaved it until it was hot.  Again, I ate every single speck.  :)

When I drove to the Winterhaven post office last week, these are some of the shots I got along the way.  There are some beautiful places in this area that you can enjoy just driving along:

A date palm orchard - there are a lot of these in the area.  Note the smoke in the sky from the fire, it had just started:

There were pretty fields of produce, huge cauliflowers, and I think these are lettuce:

A little pond with American Coots:

This poor guy looks like he fell over and just kept growing (and silly Katie):

Laguna Diversion Dam.  This is a pretty little dam -  you drive right past it on Highway 26:

I got this photo from Wikipedia, mine looked just like it, but was from the road and a little blurry.

Remember the fire we saw in our way back to camp?  It was apparently a controlled burn that got out of control and became a fire that was hard to put out.  It went right up to the road and prohibited people from coming up to the Imperial Dam, LTVA.  I guess the people on their way here had to go back and come through Winterhaven the way I was traveling.  Bummer.  And this is what the area looked like after the fire when I was heading to Yuma last week:

There is going to be a gathering of RV Bloggers in Quartzsite this month.  Here's the information:

I don't know if I'll be back in the area, but if I am, I'll be there.  This is being organized by Jerri at Just Wanderin'.  Her post today is pretty funny, and if you go back two more posts, you'll see the one about the Blogger-Fest.

It's starting to warm up, finally.  Super windy during the night, last night, and still kind of breeze today, but the temps are coming up and are in the 70s all week. 

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

Happy New Year 2015, Baby!

The baby above looks like a moose head, doesn't he?  So darn cute sleeping in the sun.

And here's Mom - just standing around while her baby takes a nap.

Then she decides to have a little snack.

In a little while the baby gets up and Mom walks over and they have a little snuggle.  :)

Mom soon moves away and her little one follows, but not close.  He takes his time.

And off they go to a new area.  It's always a good day when I get some nice shots of wild burros, wild horses, hummingbirds or roadrunners.  Great way to start 2015!  :)

More and more wild burros are being seen in the area, and I was told the little flat area right below the edge of my campsite is where they hang around in the sun during the day sometimes.  I can't see it from my window, but I'll be looking over the edge from time to time to see if they are there.

Sunset on Friday night.  It was such a pretty pastel sky.


From me and Katie, Happy New Year, everybody!

Imperial Dam LTVA

I've been having some computer/phone/Internet issues the last week or two, but I think I finally have things back to normal.  I got a new phone, then found out Verizon blocked my ability to use it as a hotpspot using FoxFi and it was a pain to always have it connected by a USB cord (and that didn't always get me connected).  So I bought another one and returned the first phone.  Now everything works again.  I loved my 3G phone and knew it inside and out, but the hardware just didn't talk to the upgraded software anymore so....   I really had no choice.  Now I'm super glad to have this nice new 4G phone!  It has a little bigger face, too, so it's easier to do things with just the phone. 

Christmas was quiet, but I made a nice breakfast for myself:

Man, was it good!  Two large eggs scrambled with cheese on top, a whole avocado mashed with lemon and salt/pepper, sour cream and catsup.  Ummmm!  And a toasted Chibatta roll with lots of butter and apricot jam.  I ate every single bit, too. 

Then Katie and I went out for a walk.  We walked down across the road to the water, then back to the road and down a ways to the canal.  I don't know what part of "Imperial Dam" this is, but it looks like a dam.  Pretty with the palm trees and mountains.

I'm finding it hard to push Katie's stroller on the rocky and/or rough roadways, so I think if I'm going to get any real walking in, I'm going to leave Katie home and put on my MP3 player full of audio books and take off by myself.  I hate to leave her, because she loves to come along, but I think 2015 is going to be the year of walking alone for me.  At least while we're in the desert.  As long as I have an audio book or walking music to listen to, it'll be enjoyable and good exercise.

Here are some shots of the areas by us.  These are across Senator Wash, the road in front of us.  Here's the water:

And right to the left of it is this beautiful field.

That's the view out the dinette windows.  Here's our site at the edge of the campground.

The edge is slowly falling down and right before I got here the Rangers (or someone working for the BLM) brought a bunch of rock and filled in some of the edges of the slides.  That concrete pad is the largest one left from a small community that lived here when Imperial Diverson Dam was built between 1936 and 1938. Families lived on this land while employed to build the dam, and this one was apparently where the hospital was, and there were little houses all over this area up here.  Every so often you can spot a water pipe right below the dirt.  There must be a whole bunch of pipes and "whatever" under the ground here.

It seems like each year when I come there is a little less area to camp overlooking the road and water.  This isn't the prettiest campsite I've had, but I sure do like my view.

Here are a couple of my neighbors:

See how his coloring blends into the rocks?  (These are the rocks used to "fill" in the areas where the slides are taking place.)

Cute little critters!

We drove to Yuma to do some shopping yesterday and on our way back, past the military base, look what turned out of their driveway and came toward us, a big tank:

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

The cute, the smokey, the Christmassy and the beautiful

Our FIRST burro!  We saw this cute little guy on Monday - he was just standing there, looking down the road.  It seemed like he was waiting for his burro buddies, I remember last year they always travelled in families or groups.  He ignored us until I whistled, then he turned his head our way, but still didn't move.

Katie and I drove passed him on our way to the Christian Service Center.  We were going there to register so I can receive mail at the center.  We spoke to the ladies for a while, found out all about their services, then walked over to the post office to make sure our new phone hadn't arrived yet.  Unfortunately they will be closed from Wednesday through Sunday for the Christmas holiday and the phone wasn't there.  (This isn't a USPS, it's a "service" they perform for local folks.)

On our way back to the site, he was still standing there, so patiently looking down the road.  Hadn't moved a foot.  I'm still seeing lots of hoof prints going past The Palms - these guys, so far, are moving through this campground when it's dark.  As the days get longer, we'll see them more and more.  :)  Isn't he a beauty?

We drove to the little town of Winterhaven yesterday (Wednesday) to pick up my new phone, and on the way back this is what we saw (note the really rough road - about 1/3 of the way we drove between 5 and 15 mph.  I could feel all the screws in The Palms slowly working their way loose with all the rattling going on):

I wondered if the fire was near our campground and whether or not we'd be able to get back to our site.  It turns out, I think it's pretty close, but heard it's a controlled fire.  This is what we saw from our site when we got back around 5:30:

Later:

It looked like the fires were being spread along a line, and some were dying out, others were growing.  This is what I saw this morning:

This was just a bit ago:

Katie and I went out for a walk, and it was raining large ashes on us.  These long black ash pieces are all over the place:

 This is a dust devil of ashes that flew across the ground in front of us:

The last few nights we've had a parade of light drive through the campground.  Honking horns, yelling Merry Christmas, with Santa in the last one.  There were six vehicles, I think,  and they were really cute and Christmassy:

A different setting on the camera would have helped, but you get the idea.

This is my neighbor's site all lit up at night:

Second only to full moons, I love these little sliver moons - this was last night's:

Here is one of our sunsets since we've been here at Imperial Dam LTVA - I wonder what the sunset will look like tonight with all the smoke in the sky?  When I go outside I can taste the smoke, so we're staying in as much as possible.  But I remember some gorgeous sunsets in the past when we were near a fire.

Katie and I wish all of our readers a Very Merry Christmas.  Peace, Health and Happiness.