Karen

Not everywhere you go is interesting. Some places are boring, no matter how much you try to convince yourself that they are not. Today we were in the Texas panhandle east of Amarillo. It is flat. Very flat. See:

So as you get bored you start taking pictures of anything that ISN’T flat:

And then you have silly conversations with your mate:

When you get to your destination and go out to dinner, though, it is soooo worth it:

And after dinner, when you get back to the campground, you see the most interesting thing of the day: a portable horse corral and a horse camping next door to you!

And THAT makes driving through Texas worth it!

Thanks to Jenny of My Little Me for hosting this About Me Vlog Hop. She asked us to answer three questions:

• Show me three things that follow you around all day? ie a certain drink, your phone, etc… (not kids, lol, we all know that happens).
• Do you have any local annual festivals? If so, describe what it’s about and whether you like to visit it each year.
• Do you have a craft/hobby you enjoy?  If so (and you can) show me an example.  ie a knitted piece, a painting, etc…

Well, I tried to do this from memory, and you know how it is when  you get to be 59, the memory ain’t like it used to be. So, I got ONE thing that follows me around all day. I sorta didn’t get the second one at all but I DID talk about my annual “seasonal” job at the Grand Canyon, and I shared with you the wonderful sunset over the Transept Canyon in my back yard on my last day here for this year.

And I left out the last one altogether, but I am posting a couple of pics of my quilts that I have made. I love sewing and quilting, and actually do have a shop online, and  you can find the link to it up there in my sidebar. Take a look, bookmark it, and come back again in a couple of months when I have had time to add some stuff to it. Thank you. So, without further ado, here is my video.  (OH, and please note, don’t turn the sound up all the way. It was windy so the wind is pretty loud, and at a couple of places you can’t hear me plainly, but I really wanted to share this with you.)

If you would like to play along, just create a post on your blog with a video, and answer the three questions above. Then add your link to the Mr. Linky!

First, I have to say that we are not really planning to stop traveling in our RV. We just want to buy a house in the west Georgia area while the prices are good. You can get a pretty good little house for around $35,000-$45,000. We don’t want to let bargains like that pass us by, because we will have to stop traveling someday. Don’t want to wait until the last minute. So for those of you who commented or emailed me, no, we aren’t coming out of the RV just yet, just getting a house to own us again.

We slept late today, and I woke up tired. I know it was because I didn’t sleep well. There are lots of reasons for that:

1. Because we went to a party at the lodge last night, and when we were walking from the parking lot to the sidewalk in the dark, Fabgrandpa fell over a very large rock (like a boulder amost) that is part of the barrier between the parking lot and the yard of the Vistor Center. I mean, he walked right into the rock and fell like a timber, catching himself with his arm. I was glad that he didn’t fall on his face, because that could have been really bad because it was concrete he fell on. I was also glad he didn’t break his arm, because it was 85 miles to the closest doctor in Kanab. So I was worried that he was going to be too sore to leave today.

2. Because my foot was hurting and I had already taken my medication that the doctor prescribed for it. No matter which way I tossed and turned, it just throbbed.

3. Because the people in the house across the street from us left their porch light on, and the light from it was like a laser beam coming through our bedroom window. I tried hanging a towel over the window but it didn’t keep all the light out.

4. Fabgrandpa was having some intestinal issues, and and when I say intestinal issues, it was, well, to put it as delicately as I can, he was passing gas all night long. These “bubbles” were quite noisy and smelly, and while I don’t want to be disrespectful of him, I tell you about it because it was part of why I wasn’t sleeping well last night. Let’s just say that for a man who equates farting with manlyness, he was QUITE manly last night.

So, for all those reasons and more, I woke up tired and grumpy. But then the manly man brought me my coffee.

We finally got everything packed up and hitched up and on the road by 10:00 a.m. Here is a the first RV Minute of this trip, the first half mile or so leaving the North Rim (turn the sound down or it will bust your eardrums, and please disregard the dirty windshield):

It was a rather uneventful trip, except that we passed a truck pulling a 5th wheel trailer going the other way who had a flat tire on his trailer, and obviously didn’t know it. He was traveling fast, and the tire was smoking, like it was ready to catch the trailer on fire. And then a few minutes later, we passed a tractor-trailor going the same way we were going who had a flat tire on his trailer, too. I wanted Fabgrandpa to stop and check our tires just for good measure but he just said I was being paranoid. Well, yeah! because the last two times we have traveled we  had flat tires.

We arrived at the KOA in Flagstaff about 3:45 p.m.  After we took the trailer off the hitch, it moved! I mean, we were both standing in front of this 12,000 pound trailer jacking up the electric jack when the dang trailer started rolling! It only moved about an inch, but I am here to tell you I about pooped my pants! This has never happened to us in the more than 11 years we have been traveling by RV. Thank GOD he had put the chock in between the wheels before we started unhitching.

After we got over our fright and finished setting the trailer up, we took off for Picazzo’s Pizza, our favorite place to eat in Flagstaff. We shared a Caprese Salad Plate, which was two salad “kabobs” made up of cherry tomatoes, fresh mozzarella balls, and basil leaves. They served it with some Fig Balsamic Vinegar that was soooo good. I am definitely looking for some of that next time I am near a gourmet store.  I got a gluten free puttanesca pizza–it had artichoke hearts, kalamla olives, tomatoes, and feta cheese with a garlic and basil sauce. He had the Vortex, a meat and pepper concoction that looks delicious but it had a regular wheat crust so I don’t know.

That’s the day, for today. Tomorrow we’ll be on I-40 headed for Grants, New Mexico.

Now that I am officially an unemployed hobo,  I was getting the trailer ready to roll towards Georgia. I couldn’t help but think back to when it all began. We were selling everything we owned and moving from a 1500 square foot or so house into a less than 400 square foot RV. We had to be very objective and practical when deciding what to keep. We had to think about whether or not we wanted to put a lot of stuff into one of those big storage units, or if we wanted to just get rid of everything and not look back. For us, the answer was simple. While the things we owned had a lot of sentimental value for us, they certainly weren’t priceless things that couldn’t be replaced.

What was right for us, though, may not be right for everyone. We have met several people along the way who did opt for storing their things with a self storage company, but the things they had were things that they couldn’t replace. They had antiques, grandma’s silverware and china, and large tools they didn’t want to get rid of but certainly wouldn’t fit in their RV.

Now that we are looking at buying another house this winter, we’ll be looking for things to furnish it with. We won’t be buying new stuff for the house, except for a couple of matching recliners and a mattress for the bed. (some things just hafta be new, ya know?) We’ll be going to estate sales, thrift stores, yard sales, and places like that, looking for just the right piece to make our new home livable but recycled. Can’t wait to start looking!

It was questionable whether or not I would make it to the end of this season. But Victory! I made it! Last shift done and leaving the North Rim on Monday!

Fabgrandpa stopped by my duty station for a visit on his break. He brings me Haagen Daas Chocolate Ice Cream on a stick when I work at the campground. Gotta love a man like that!

We’ll be pointing the truck towards Georgia on Monday–first stop, Flagstaff for a gluten free pizza at Picazzo’s Pizza.

I have written about this subject before–it is something I care a lot about and need to get out there. I really really don’t like when people go camping and disregard the rules set by the campground. I especially don’t like when the people disregarding the rules of the campground are people in a leadership position for youth groups. Whether they are Boy Scout leaders, Girl Scout leaders, church youth groups, Boys and Girls Club leaders, it really does not matter what the affiliation is. If you volunteer to lead a group for children, then you should know that when you disregard or disobey the rules of the campground, you are leading by example.

You are teaching the youth who look up to you that it doesn’t matter what the rules are, if those rules prevent you for doing something that you want to do while you are in the campground, then you are teaching our impressionable youngsters that it is ok to disobey if we don’t agree with the rules.

The most common rule these people break is putting up too many tents on a campsite.  These people really do not understand that the rule of having only three tents per site is one that protects the environment of the campground, and keeps it just as beautiful for the next campers as you found it today when you arrived. That is also the reason for a limit on the number of people on a site. At a campground that has 85 campsites 4 bathrooms, the limit is stated because that is the number of people our sewer system can accomodate.  Also, if you bring 10 people to camp on a site designed for 6, you are encroaching on the sites around you, not only with your excess people but with the noise they produce as well.

If you can not get reservations for three sites if you need three sites according to the rules of the campground, then you should plan your trip at another time.  The people who were violating several rules in our campground today would have been perfectly fine on a group site designed for 25 people. And at the beginning of the day, two of those group sites were available due to no reservation being made on them. I can understand that maybe their group didn’t have $50 to reserve the group site, but that is just a little bit more than the rate of $18 per site for the two sites they did reserve. However, these same people also presented senior passes for a 50% discount on those two sites, so for the low low price of $18 for two sites, they had about 19 people camping on those two sites. And I think the reason they didn’t reserve the group site is because those sites do not qualify for the discount.

I could go on and on, but I think you get the gist of it. These “leaders” are leading by example to just barge in, take what you want, when you want, and have no regard for the well being of the facility, the comfort and pleasure of the people around you, or any respect for authority.

And  just in case you think I don’t know what I am talking about, I will tell you that I was a Girl Scout leader for more than 8 years. When we went camping, the girls in my troop always knew what the rules of the facility were.  We all obeyed them–whoever did not adhere to the rules did not go camping with us again. So, please, Mr. Church Youth Group Leader, Mrs. Girl Scout Leader, and everyone else who has our youth in your care, please please please, lead with integrity, so that our children will see what that quality really is.