Friday, August 23, 2013

UPON REACHING CONGRESS ARIZONA THIS FALL OUR FIRST SIDE TRIP WILL BE TO ‘SLAB CITY’ CALIFORNIA

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DIDN’T SEE THE LITTLE FROG FELLOW BETWEEN THESE WATER LILIES UNTIL I HAD THE PHOTO IN PICASA…LOOKS LIKE HE IS CONCENTRATING ON DISGUISING HIMSELF AS A FROG LILY

Ever since beginning our Snow Bird travels back in the fall of 2006 we have always traveled with a CB Radio. Never have had occasion to talk on it but we do monitor it quite a bit while traveling the Interstates. Has helped us out several times knowing about slow downs ahead. When we sold the Damon I took the CB radio out & kept it figuring on putting it in our next RV. Well, not a lot a room in the Ford Cab & I didn't like the idea of punching holes in the dash to hook it up plus another hole in the coach to mount an aerial. And then there's the cost of having someone install it. No way do I have the patience, interest, or knowledge to try running electrical wires around under the dash etc. Picked up a Cobra HH 38 WX ST C at Canadian Tire this morning. It's portable & plugs into the cigarette lighter. Also runs on battery power. Has weather channels etc. Not a device that is necessarily used a lot but it’s handy when you need it.

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SPOTTED THIS NICE LOOKING CAR IN THE CANADIAN TIRE PARKING LOT

Of course in order to pick up that CB it meant Pheebs & I had to Jeep ourselves to Goderich.  Not wanting to come straight home of course we picked up a Sub to go & headed out to dust up a few country roads.  Not a long drive again but we did manage a stop at our favorite frog pond.  Pheebs recognizes this spot now because the last two times I came around a corner & headed down into a gully between the 2 large ponds Pheebs goes bonkers racing around inside the Jeep crying to get out.  Likes to see all her little Froggy Pals.

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Took Pheebs for a walk this afternoon & made it all the way around our Pine Forest trail without too much bother to my left foot.  Think I have turned a corner on that soft tissue injury & things are looking up. 

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PHEEBS LIKES GETTING ALL THE LITTLE FROGGY GUYS TO JUMP IN THE WATER

QUOTE: ‘Might come as a shock for many Ontario residents to know their vehicle insurance is not valid if they are out of Province longer than a 6 month period’. You can read more about this over at FRUGAL-RV-TRAVEL.COM.  Great RV blog site by the way, always informative.
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NOT MANY OF THESE OLD WOODEN BARN SILOS LEFT IN THE COUNTRYSIDE ANYMORE…NORTH OF BEN MILLER

I don’t know how August 9th blew by me without remembering it was 2 years ago on that date we met our wonderful Pheebs. For Kelly & I it was our lucky day. And I’m sure Pheebs would agree it was her lucky day as well. It was a meeting that brought us, & still brings us, great joy every single day. What an amazing stroke of good fortune that we found such a heart warming & lovable little dog. You can read my post from a year ago about the day we met the Pheebs in August of 2011. OUR FABULOUS PHEEBS....365 DAYS OF HAPPY.

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AUGUST 9TH 2011…THE DAY WE MET PHEEBS FOR THE FIRST TIME:)) 

Water Striders is the correct name for those little water walking critters I had a photo of in Thursday night's post. I had called them Water Spiders. Seems I got my Striders & Spiders mixed up. Not something one wants to be doing after age 65. Thanks to Chinle over at SPOTTED DOG RANCH for pointing that spider strider thing out.

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A FEW TOUCHES OF VERY EARLY AUTUMN

I use a long 300mm lens for most of my bugs, birds, frogs, butterflies, flowers, & candid people pics etc.  Many times it is not until I get home & bring those photos up in my photo editing program that I see things in the photos I had not seen through the telephoto lens when taking the picture.  A recent frog picture was a good example of that & another photo this morning showed a frog on the right in full view that I did not see when taking the picture.  Kinda scary sometimes because I’m not always that far away.  In the photo below I was only about 3 feet away from the little frog at the upper left.  I was concentrating on getting that old tree trunk sticking out of the water in the frame & I never did see the frog with a piece of grass on it’s nose sitting to the right of the small wood stump.  Good thing it wasn’t a 10’ Alimagator!!

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I seem to recall someone asked a question about Sitemeter awhile ago.  Think the question was, ‘What is the difference between a visit and a page view’?  Good question & one I have difficulty understanding even after reading the explanation below from Sitemeter’s own site.  Sitemeter says……(‘When you are browsing a site, every time you follow a link to a new web page, it is treated as a single page view . Site Meter defines a visit as a series of page views by one person with no more than 30 minutes in between page views. If you click on a link to another site, and then come back to your site within 30 minutes, you are still on the same visit and Site Meter won't increment the counter. But Site Meter will increment the number of page views recorded for your current visit.’)  Now, if you can understand how that all works your doing better than me.  All’s I know is that on my Sitemeter Counter I have ‘Total Visits’ & ‘Total Page’ views, each with 2 different numbers.

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We have pretty much scrapped our travel plans to Ontario’s Bruce Peninsula.  A month ago we were hoping to get away in the Winnie Wagon for a few days but with our recent bout of medical troubles & Doctor’s appointments we figured we had just better stay put until we are through with these things.  I don’t think Kelly is quite up to par just yet for boondocking anyway.  Also, the Winnie Wagon will be better equipped next summer for travel.  Not long after we reach Congress in the Fall we want to head over to Slab City California & have Solar Mike do us up a solar system for the rig.  That will once again give us back our independence to resume our favoured RV lifestyle .   For us it makes RVing more pleasurable if we are not dependent on RV Parks, time schedules, reservations, & all the stuff that goes along with that kind of RVing.  As many long time readers know, we much prefer the quiet of nature as opposed to the alternative.  As originally planned, we hope to use our Congress digs as a home base & branch out from there on shorter side trips around the South West this winter…………………………..    

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REFLECTION IN THE JEEP’S TOPPER WINDOW THIS MORNING

GROANER’S CORNER:))  A little silver-haired lady calls her neighbor and says,
"Please come over here and help me.  I have a killer jigsaw puzzle, and I can't figure out how to get started."  Her neighbor asks, "What is it supposed to be when it's finished?"
The little silver haired lady says, "According to the picture on the box, it's a rooster."
Her neighbor decides to go over and help with the puzzle.  She lets him in and shows him where she has the puzzle spread all over the table.  He studies the pieces for a moment, then looks at the box, then turns to her and says,
"First of all, no matter what we do, we're not going to be able to assemble these pieces into anything resembling a rooster."   He takes her hand and says, "Secondly, I want you to relax. Let's have a nice cup of tea, and then," he said with a deep sigh ............
"Let's put all the Corn Flakes back in the box."
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- Tourists see the world, travelers experience it.
- Home is where your pet is:))
- "If having a soul means being able to feel
love and loyalty and gratitude, then animals
are better off than a lot of humans."
(James Herriot)
- The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails -William Arthur Ward
- The only thing better than right now will someday be the memories of right now...AL.
- It is not so much having nothing to do as it is not having the interest to do something....AL.

13 comments:


  1. Good to hear you're planning your winter trips. Us too!

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  2. What a funny groaner! Love your froggie photos.

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  3. We have a CB in our coach and would not want to travel without it. Many times it has come in very handy. One time we were getting ready to pull out of a RV park and the traffic on the interstate (40) started to back up. Turned out they were closing the interstate, because of high winds. We would have been stuck in traffic on I40 for over seven hours. Thanks to questions we asked on the CB, we stayed put!

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  4. We also travel with a CB. Has definitely helped us out a couple of times.

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  5. Before we had an RV, Dennis and I did lots of traveling,and a CB radio was a must...Not so much now, but those truckers sure know where the cops are hiding on the roads.

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  6. Let us know how that handheld works out. We much prefer the ability to boondock with or without our horses and love the quiet of solar, even though I am convinced that using our genny would be more cost efficient. But then everything isn't about cost efficiency. I can't remember whether the Winnie Wagon has a genset.

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  7. Al, if you call them spiders, I'm leary of them. Call them striders, and they're now an interesting critter I like to watch. We could call them water sliders and really confuse things. LOL

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  8. I'm so glad you found Pheebs too so we can follow along with her. A friend's dog that looks a lot like Pheebs had puppies last year and I had to have a lot of restraint to keep from asking for one. It took my DH a year to get over the last kittens I took in so thought I better not bring home a puppy.

    I have traveled off and on with a CB since they got popular years ago. I never did get one installed in my current motorhome so ended up with a portable one too. With all the things that have to be plugged in(cell phone charger, gps, tire monitor) I haven't used it in a while. Some of the language on the air now will curl your hair.

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  9. We put a one hander CB in our van conversion, Class C and then finally our coach. Like you say comes in handy to check traffic jams and like the weather channels on it too.

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  10. A CB is something else that I don't have that appears to be important to many people. Didn't know I needed one and haven't missed it so I guess I'll just keep on doing without.

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  11. I hope to never again have to worry about traffic jams - just stay off the freeways! This trip has been wonderful for me in that I minimized most of the stressful driving, although not all, of course. You still have to use some interstates going across country, if only for a few miles.

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  12. Well for someone that likes the southwest with a lot of photos have u looked at http://theoasisofmysoul.com/
    Joy your day

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  13. Al,

    I know you have had solar panels installed by Mike in the Slabs before, but I have know several people who have had the same work done in AZ by a guy that comes highly recommended by A & M Solar of Springfield, OR.

    Could save you some time and gas money. Just a thought.

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