Woke up to the sound of rain when the alarm went off, so I turned it off and rolled over, no way I was going to mess with that! Fortunately, it was all gone an hour later, just cloudy, so I got up and finished packing. I was afraid that with all the rain we might have trouble getting off the grass out to the gravel driveway, but there was no problems, yay! By the time we finished at the RV dump on the other side of the park at the campground, it was just about noon, but since the trip is less than three hours, we had plenty of time. It was an uneventful drive, thank goodness, and we arrived at Tri-County around 4:00. We were worried about whether we would get stuck again, but fortunately it hadn’t rained as much here, and we were able to back in easily to the same spot we were in last time. Unbeknownst to me, while I was getting the horses up on the highline provided (I decided to do that rather than get my own highline out), Lola jumped out the passenger side window (which I’ve never seen her do before, but I guess she just had to pee!), and then went on a quick walkabout to see if there was anyone in camp who would play with her while I was working on getting us set up. Well, it wasn’t long before I realized she was gone, so I called her, and she came running back, as she always does, she’s such an obedient girl! But that didn’t stop the complaints. Two women from different parts of the campground made a beeline for me and complained to me that all dogs needed to be on a leash. I apologized and explained that as a therapy dog, it’s her compulsion to go greet people, and she had slipped away without my knowing (she still had her therapy vest on from when we stopped for lunch at Denny’s, where she sat quietly under a table like she always does, making lots of people smile as they came in and saw her, again, that’s her job.) Nothing like a warm welcome, huh? Well, after getting all my chores done, I got out the loungers and we sat under the awning (too short a stay to bother with the screen room) and played fetch the frisbee with Lola for a while. Shockingly, when I went to do cleanup of the horses’ section of the trailer at dinnertime, I discovered the manure spreader is still so full there’s almost no place to add more, so I had a heck of a time dumping my utility cart. Anyway, we finally settled down for the evening, to clearing skies and a promising forecast.
Archives for August 2019
Tuesday, Aug. 20, 2019 – Packing Day
Spent the larger part of the day starting to pack up things for our departure tomorrow, in between dialyzing Hubby. It’s been a great stay here, and I can definitely see us coming back here some time in the future. Very enjoyable, and there are still a few more trails I have yet to explore!
Monday, Aug. 19, 2019 – Runaround Day
With the necessity to send out Hubby’s labs via Fedex (I hate Fedex!), I left him in camp and ran out to do various errands. First to the camp office to pay for another two days (though I learned there’s a drop box out here somewhere, which would have worked just as well). Then I arrived at the Fedex Ship Center in Franklin at 11:30, only to discover a sign on the door saying they were closed for lunch between 11:15-11:45. Figures. I put the package in the box outside and hoped for the best. Then I ran around trying to find some kind of air compressor that would replace the crappy Kensun I bought (it worked ONCE, then died). My first stop was Harbor Freight, and there was a little pancake tank type compressor I thought might do the job, but I couldn’t understand why the label said 100 max PSI while the gauges all went up to 180. After a half hour of asking the same question of the staff there, I never did get a good answer, so I gave up on it. I ended up with something from Home Depot, not sure if it would work, but it said it would go up to 130 (I need 123 psi on my trailer tires), fingers crossed. Picked up a few things at Walmart and finally got back to camp after 2:30. I tried out the new air compressor, but it hardly budged the needle on the trailer tires, so I’m back to square one. At least with Home Depot I can take it back later this week in Ohio. Discovered we had some neighbors tucked away in the woods on the other side of camp, and had a chat with them about their solar array, wondering how theirs worked, and whether there’s a system that could just recharge our batteries as a supplement to using the generator. If we can keep the batteries charged up, the inverter would do the rest for us. Settled down for the evening, enjoying the fact that for once when the forecast was for rain, it actually didn’t rain! I hope that trend continues, as we’re planning on moving on Wednesday, and they’re definitely calling for rain on that day. Here’s hoping!
Friday, Aug. 16, 2019 – Shopping and Hay Day
Since I ran out of hay yesterday (and was given a couple of bales by Lisa, for which I’m very grateful!), I had made arrangements to pick up new hay in a town called Sandy Lake, which is only about 30 minutes away. Phil met me, and sold me some gorgeous 2nd cutting, some of the best hay I’ve seen in a long time! I wish I had room for more, but 10 was all I could manage, and at $5.00 a bale, I was happy to take it! On the way back we stopped to shop at our usual places, Tractor Supply and Walmart, with a quick stop at Aldi, though there wasn’t much there that I use, then back to camp. Got everything put away before starting dialysis, and spent the rest of the day watching old movies and munching. Another great day on the road!
Wednesday, Aug. 14, 2019 – Boot Found, FINALLY!
Weather was much better this morning, it cleared out overnight, so after breakfast I saddled up Flash and headed back up the trail to see if I could find the missing boot. I knew exactly where the first place was we realized it was gone, and I had a pretty good idea where the last place I checked for it was when it was on, so I rode Flash all the way down and all the way and didn’t see it. Then I half convinced myself it must be in that last puddle, so I spent about half an hour reaching into every hole, re-engineering the puddle to drain off, and generally searching the entire area of the puddle with no luck. Then I thought it must have come off when we started trotting up the hill to the puddle, so I took a long stick and beat back all the long grass and ferns on both sides of the trail and still, no luck. Then I walked back up the trail, beating the bushes on the right side, where Apollo had mostly been, nothing. Finally, after almost two hours, while I was beating the bushed on the other side, there it was. It wasn’t even really hidden, it was just not where I expected to find it, naturally. Glad to have found it, can’t believe it took so long! Got back to camp in not time (it was only about a half mile out from camp), got Flash settled in, then got Hubby going on his dialysis session, and relaxed for the rest of the day. Whew!
Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2019 – Rainy Cleaning Day
Rain came in overnight and continued most of the day. Since I couldn’t go out and look for Apollo’s lost boot in this weather, I decided to take advantage of it and spend a good part of the day doing some long overdue deep cleaning in the trailer. Not a thrilling event, but one that must be done occasionally, and this was a good day for it! Hubby sat in the screen room and read most of the day (he really loves being able to be outside the trailer, even in the rain!), and I finally joined him mid-afternoon, relaxing the rest of the day after hours of hard work. A nice quiet evening, though my neighbor had a group of girls join her late in the day, and they did a lot of tree-climbing and giggling, as girls of that age do. Fun to watch, wish I still had the strength to climb a tree! Apollo finally discovered these were apple trees, I saw him munching on a couple of fallen fruit this afternoon, as they are just reaching peak ripeness (though I tried them, and the are not quite sweet enough for my taste!), but he didn’t seem to mind. Settled down for another relaxing evening.