Black Butte Lake – Boondocking + Friends

Hi all, Dianne here.  After we left Vacaville, we headed north through more beautiful golden hills for two nights off the grid at Black Butte Lake in Northern California.

Our good friends Mike and Brenda are in charge of two campgrounds at this Corps of Engineers lake, and we knew we’d be able to visit them and enjoy some Retama-style happy hours. 

 As we pulled up to the booth, we saw Mike’s smiling face to

welcome us.  

They helped us find a perfect site with a beautiful lake view... 

Roger especially liked the way the reflected bands in the water looked gold like the surrounding hills:

It was so peaceful and quiet that I tried to read on our patio area, but fell sound asleep,
with my pal Bandido by my side.

After a very relaxing afternoon, we brought some wine and snacks to Mike and Brenda’s site for happy hour.  Brenda had told me ahead of time that she was fixing supper for us, but wow, I sure wasn’t expecting a spread like this!
Pot roast, potatoes, perfectly-skillet-roasted vegetables, cauliflower salad, artisan bread.  Not pictured was the awesome warm dessert made with sauteed pineapple, bananas and Italian mascarpone cheese.  I knew Brenda was known for her cooking, but wow!


It gets very hot at Black Butte Lake in the summer (100s), and it was 96 the second day we were there.  With no electricity for air conditioning, that was an issue! We stayed comfortable in the shade with a breeze until late afternoon.  Roger took Bandido and Tequila swimming in the lake several times.  The dogs loved it, and it cooled them off. (Wish we had pictures...)

When we went back to Mike and Brenda’s for happy hour and dinner (yes, she cooked two meals for us, lasagna this time!), we took all three animals with us, because it was just too hot to leave them behind.  Mike and Brenda have a very shady patio area, and it was always cool and pleasant with a wonderful breeze while we were there. 

Charlie was in heaven, relaxing in the soft, Indiana-style grass.  Our dogs enjoyed seeing Lucky and Lucy, Mike and Brenda’s two little dogs.  Lucky was interested in Charlie (they both weigh about 15 pounds), but Charlie twitched his tail, flattened his ears, and Lucky got the message and steered clear!

It was great to meet up with our friends and catch up on the latest news since we all left Retama Village in Texas earlier this spring.  All too soon it was time to say good-bye, but we know we'll see them again in Texas next fall.  

There are a series of pet photos of the day this time, because we took some good photos of Bandido and Tequila playing together in the nice dog run at the Vineyard RV park before we left  Vacaville.  They LOVED it there!  Here are some photos, with captions:

Catch Me if You Can!

Can you still catch the ball with a cattle dog hanging from your neck??

Oh, Boy!  Dad threw the ball!   Here it comes!!

Caught it!!

Way to go, Bandido!   You're my hero!!

Home Sweet Home! Back to Retama Village

Hi all, Dianne here.  Just a quick blog update on our return to our winter home at Retama Village in Mission, Texas.  One of the reasons we've not updated is illustrated above.  Not many people are back to their winter home yet, so Roger and I have often had the pool all to ourselves.  

Roger has gone over to swim laps several times.  When it cools off a little, we'll start biking in the state park next door for exercise.

We spent the first week or so getting all settled in, moving the grill and furniture back to the patio...

We ordered a bike rack 
and Roger assembled it:

Planting my tomatoes, herbs, and new cactus...

  

Our roses and back yard plantings are doing well...

This year I'm attempting to grow morning glories and moon flowers in my vining pots.  I worried that the wind and baking sun might be too harsh for them, but so far they are thriving!  I'll post another photo once they are big enough to bloom.  The plan is to have morning glories blooming during the day, and when they close up the moon flowers will open up in the evening with their heavenly scent.  

While you all are enjoying the crisp weather of fall, our thermometer still registers in the mid 90s every day (another reason we've spent time at the pool).  Today it's forecast to reach 100!  Evenings and mornings are pleasant, though, and I'll trade shorts all winter for a little afternoon heat now.

Other activities we've done since our return include planning next summer's trip to the Pacific Northwest (Roger), catching up on Quicken with our bills and receipts (me, with Charlie the cat's help as shown above), playing librarian in the clubhouse (me), gearing up for the fall neighborhood activities (Roger), and most of all,

I like to carry my own favorite toy!

 walking Bandido and Tequila over to their beloved doggie park next door for their morning romp and play.  Here's a few more photos of the fun:

Ahhhh!   I could have used this water tub in Moab this summer!!

Ready to rumble!

I LOVE my blue ball!

If you haven't gotten enough of doggie park fun, I made a movie of some of the action, set to music:

Rather than close with more photos of Bandido, Tequila, or Charlie, here are a few night time shots captured by my wildlife cam, both here and at our final stop at Choke Canyon State Park:

Racoon visitors at Choke Canyon

Big ole' Javelina passing through our site at Choke Canyon S.P.

Not to be outdone, soon after we returned to Retama, my wildlife cam caught this large coyote just behind our back fence:

                                                  

There must be a large pack of coyotes nearby, because we can often hear them at night yip-yip-yipping and it sounds like there are hundreds of them in our back yard! 

Once again, I'll point out that we might not update for a while.  Today's blog pretty well sums up our activities since we've been home.  We'll write again if and when there's blog-worthy activity!  For those readers just interested in the travel info, check back next April/May when we set out again for another  five-month-long road trip.

Arches, Doggie Shoes, + Laundromat Drama

Double Arch

Hi all, Dianne here.  We drove the short distance from Capital Reef to Arches and are set up in Moab for the next two weeks, to visit the parks in this area. 

Before I update you on our visit here, I just have to relate my laundromat experience in Moab this morning.  I usually don't mind going to the laundromat.  A few weeks ago, at a laundromat near Zion, I even ran into a fellow blogger, RV Sue and her Canine Crew, and we had a nice chat about future travels, etc. as we did our laundry.  Today was a much different experience!  The following photos were taken surreptitiously with my iPhone. 

It will give new meaning to the caution sign, and I guarantee it will give pause to my RV'ing friends who depend on laundromats as they travel.


I entered the laundromat at about the same time as a handsome, nicely-dressed man, and went about my business filling my machines.  He looked like the type who wouldn’t be caught dead washing his own clothes in a laundromat.

My first clue that there might be something amiss was when suds started roiling out of the floor drain and spreading across the floor.  (They had gone back down by the time I took this photo).  Take special note of the rock in the suds photo.  I walked around the bank of washers to check on mine, to be sure they weren’t causing the problem, and noticed the man who entered when I did had way too much (brown) suds in his washers, plus a lot of gravel and rocks on the floor in front of them. 

My washers were done at about the same time as Mr. Clueless, and I gaped in astonishment as I saw him remove gravel- and concrete-laden canvas tarps from his washers (the tarps had obviously not been shaken out before putting them in), and move them to a couple of dryers (still not shaking them out). 

 Let me tell you, those dryers sounded like rock tumblers as they struggled with his mess.
When my first dryer was finished, I hurried to claim the folding table, knowing that he would no doubt put his filthy tarps up there if he got the chance.

As he removed the tarps from the dryers, he spread them out on the floor and tried to pick off glops of dried concrete. 

The gravel and rocks were all over the floor, to the point that I had to be extra careful not to drop any of my laundry, and I crunched around every time I moved my feet as I folded my things.  Oh, and by the way, the photo of the gravel is after he had gotten a shovel and dust pan out of the bed of his pickup to scrape up most of the mess.  This was just a fraction of what was left behind!


The other folks (mostly out-of-town RV’ers like me) who were in the laundromat at the time were also speechless and shaking their heads.  I am e-mailing these photos to the laundromat to alert them.  I think it was a local guy (he had a very nice truck with a Utah license plate).  I think from now on I’ll only use laundromats with attendants on premises (if possible), and you can be darned sure I’ll carefully check washers and dryers before I use them!  Enough laundry-day drama; back to the blog:  


We knew when we made our reservations in Moab that it would be very hot by the time we arrived.  As it turns out, it’s so hot everywhere right now that we might as well be here with the low humidity.  It may be 105 degrees, but at least it's a dry 105!  After we got parked and hooked up, we took Bandido and Tequila for a quick pee break on the dog walk, only to discover that the sand was so hot it was burning their paws to walk on it. 

That just wouldn’t do, so we made a quick trip into Moab and bought doggie shoes for them, as well as two cooling vests for them to use when hiking in the heat.  As you can see, Tequila is not too sure about the shoes!

Not Amused!

Neither is Bandido!  We were careful not to laugh at them as they tried to walk, and bribed them with treats to get them to take a step.  You’ll be glad to know that both dogs did get used to the shoes, and now walk with confidence in the hot sand.  


Roger here... We celebrated the pups' success in mastering new skills by having a tasty dinner at the Moab Brewery (without the dogs).  This place has eight different microbrews.  I only had one.

On the Dog Walk at Spanish Trails RV Park

Yesterday we set our alarm for 6:00 and got an early start to visit Arches National Park before the heat got into triple digits.  We took several short hikes to see some of the arches.  Here are photos with captions:

Landscape Arch

North Window and South Window

Balanced Rock

Skyline Arch

We started down the trail through Devil's Garden to Double O Arch, but I wimped out when I saw the steep slickrock I'd have to scramble up:

Roger, the intrepid one, went on up to the top, but when he found out from other hikers that it would be another mile to get to the Double O Arch he turned back, but not before befriending some Asian Indian children who were proud to show him the snake they saw and photographed on the trail.

Roger wants to describe this photo himself, and our eventful trip back to the RV.


Roger here...  There are lots of strange, interesting, humorous, and frustrating snippets in this post.  However, the most disturbing to me is that my wife of almost 40 years, may be an alien!  Dianne took the above photo.  You know how a vampire reflection never shows up in a mirror?  Well, I am concerned that we humans can only see the true images of aliens from their shadows.  We will be traveling through Roswell, NM on our way back to Texas in the fall.  Is this a coincidence?  You can bet that I will be watching Dianne very closely, when we get to Roswell.


In another matter, on the trip back to the RV park from Arches, we had an interesting (frustrating) experience.  Road construction --- directly in front of the RV park entrance.   The road crew had just laid a fresh patch of asphalt that we could not cross.  We were told to come back in 30 minutes.  When we returned, after a frustrating drive to nowhere, knowing it was time for the dogs to pee, we saw a motor home being turned away.  Crap.  I followed the motor home to a nearby Shell station and talked to the occupants.  They had been told that it would be another hour!  Crap.  After filling up our tank, I walked over to make friends with the female flag person at the intersection.  She agreed to let me cross because our car was so small.  There are advantages to owning a cheap car.  

This morning, we got another early start and took Bandido and Tequila to the new Moab off-leash dog park.


The “kids” had a lot of fun running and chasing each other in the red sand.  It's a large park with shade trees and benches.  We were there by 8:00 and it wasn't hot yet, so we let them cut loose for a bit.  

Bandido fetched balls over and over, but he got pretty tired of getting sandy, red dirt in his mouth every time he picked up his ball.  He decided to wash it in the water bowl (his Retama friends have seen him do this in Texas).  He misses his Texas grass!


Roger here, again....  I was wounded at the dog park :-(.  While showing Tequila the way to the water bowl, a hornet stung me in the ankle.  Ten hours later (and lots of benedryl lotion, and ice), it still hurts like the devil.  My ankle bone is visually non-existent.  Hope it is better by tomorrow because we are taking the dogs on a dog-friendly hike in the morning with all their new paraphernalia. 


The pet photo of the day is a very short video of Bandido and Tequila learning to walk in shoes.  Charlie the cat took advantage of Tequila’s hesitation and ate the dog treats before Tequila came out from her hidey-hole under the chair to get them.   Roger again (one last time)...  I often skip downloaded video clips when reading on the internet.  Please don't skip this one.  Dianne did a masterful job making this one hilarious.