WHERE I THOUGHT I HAD SEEN ONE, THERE HAD BEEN TWO….PLUS, ‘DUMB & DUMBER’

JUST A FEW PHOTOS FROM AROUND THE FRONT YARD TODAY

Heard some distant thunder out over the lake before the rains made their way to shore late Friday night & continued steadily into Saturday morning. Nice to feel the cooler energy laden air & I hope we have seen the last of the miserable humidity for another year.

LEAF SHADOWS ON A NEANDERTHAL SKULL…………..OK, IT WA A ROCK

Bit of an odd thing this afternoon while Pheebs & I were out for our afternoon walk. Noticed a small white Cabbage Butterfly flitting about a wild grape vine. When it settled on a leaf I snapped off 3 quick photos from slightly different angles using my Nikon D40 & 300mm lens. These small white Butterflies do not stay in one place long so I had to be quick. Pheebs was standing beside me & when the Butterfly flew up off the leaf, Pheebs lunged forward & grabbed it in her mouth. An instant holler from me & she immediately opened her mouth. And, here's where the odd thing happened. Not one, but two Butterfly's fluttered out of her mouth. Was I seeing things? How could this be? My logic was in overdrive the rest of the way home trying to figure this out. Wasn't until I sat down at the computer later & enlarged the photos that I had an explanation for two Butterflies. Where I thought I had seen one, there had been two:))

LOOK CLOSELY & YOU WILL SEE THE HEAD & ANTENNAE OF THE SECOND BUTTERFLY AT THE BOTTOM

 
There was a movie out years ago with Jim Carrey called ‘Dumb & Dumber’. Can't remember if I saw the movie but I can sure relate to doing something one time that related to the movie title. It was dumb, & then it got even dumber. It was our first RV winter in the south-west & we were driving a truck & fifth wheel at the time. We were staying at an RV Park called Hickiwan Trails near Why, Arizona. The story, which long time readers may remember, begins here............

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I had been re-organizing my wallet after cleaning sand out of it in the afternoon & laid it on a small wood table beside my lawn chair. Max or Checkers, in their playful dog frolicking, must have bumped the table at some point & knocked my wallet over the edge into their water dish. By the time I noticed it my wallet was in a pretty soggy state of affairs. In order to dry everything out I made the first part of a big mistake. I laid my wallet on the tonneau cover of the pick-up truck to dry. Laid out my credit cards, driver's license, CAA card, etc. The tonneau cover is black & felt warm from the sun so figured everything would dry quick. Well, you probably know what's coming. A couple of hours later just after supper I decided to head down the road to check our email at a remote wifi spot near the neighbouring Coyote Howls campground. Out I went, jumped in the truck, & took off out of the park & down the highway.

When I reached the wi-fi site nearly a mile away I stopped, got out of the truck, walked around to the passenger side to access the computer, glanced at the back of the truck & "OH NO!!" In a sickening flash I remembered my wallet & cards that I had laid out on the tonneau cover earlier, and..........they were all gone. Frantically jumped in the truck & raced back to the trailer, rushed in & told Professor Rockhound (that was my nickname for Kelly because was collecting a lot of rocks at that time) what had happened. I knew the only hope I had of ever finding anything lying on the ground was to get an expert ground scanning person involved. She quickly headed out the driveway to the highway in full scan mode. I took the truck & started driving the highway shoulder & immediately found my Scotia debit card lying right in the middle of the road.

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Continued up the road a few hundred yards & turned around. By the time I got back to the area where I found the debit card I saw the Professor busily scooping things off the highway & alongside the road that I had obviously missed in my panic. Oblivious to traffic, she was on the job!! By the time I got the truck stopped she had already retrieved my wallet which had been lying open upside down in the eastbound lane. I probably drove over it myself in my rush to get back to the trailer a few minutes before. She had also found what was left of my driver's license. It was the only thing damaged. I found one more card on the southbound shoulder & that completed everything. We were only moments away from complete nightfall but the eagle eyed Professor had saved the day. Nothing missing from inside the wallet either. Both American & Canadian money were intact. It sure would have put an unfavourable dent in our vacation plans if all had been lost.  It was a close call & I had to promise that I would not be so dumb in the future. Well, that promise didn't last long because here's what I did just a few days later........

Decided to clean up the cab of the truck so opened the passenger door to pull the floor mat out. I was wearing my new black cowboy hat which I had just purchased near Carlsbad New Mexico a few weeks earlier. As I bent over I knocked my hat off so just reached down, picked it up & casually tossed it around the corner onto the tonneau cover behind the cab. Sound familiar!! Finished the clean up & went inside the trailer. Kelly said she was heading into Ajo for some groceries & would be back in an hour or so. I had some stuff to catch up on with the computer so said, "ok, see ya later." It was probably about 10 minutes later when the hair on my head almost stood straight up as I suddenly realized............my hat was on the back of the truck!!!! Oh Noooooooo!!!! I rushed out of the trailer, down the road, around the corner & up to the highway vainly looking off in the direction Kelly had traveled. No black object on the road or shoulder resembling a cowboy hat. Walked a short distance along the road but knew it was futile. My hat was gone forever & that's all there was to it.

I'm not a hat person & this cowboy hat was the only one I had ever stuck on my head that I thought didn't make me look like a total nerd. I was like a little boy who had just lost his most prized possession of ever. And I was still mad at myself because of the wallet incident just a short time before. Why didn't I learn my lesson that time about setting things on the back of the truck. I beat myself up so bad for the next hour that I was barely human by the time Kelly got back. I was in the trailer slumped in a chair when I heard the truck pull in. How was I going to explain to her that she had probably married the dumbest creature on the planet. The thought did occur to me that she was most likely quite aware of that already:(( The screen door opened & Kelly came in with a couple bags of groceries and there perched atop her beautiful blonde head was............................ my cowboy hat:)))))) At that moment I was the happiest little cowboy kid west of the Pecos.
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It was a movement in the rear view mirror that caused her to look as she was accelerating down the highway after leaving the park. That movement was my cowboy hat beginning it's take-off roll across the tonneau cover runway in preparation for lift off into the big blue Arizona sky. She quickly backed off the gas, slowly braked & pulled over to the side of the road & retrieved my precious hat. Now she was faced with a decision. She could turn around & bring the hat back before I probably even knew it was missing or she could keep on going & let me stew about my missing hat until she got back. She made the right decision. She cranked up the burner, continued on her way, & let me stew for an hour real darn good!! Do you think I learned my lesson?? Say, did I ever tell you about the time I.................................................:((

LAMP POST LIGHT BULB
GROANER'S CORNER:((  Politicians and diapers have one thing in common. They should both be changed regularly, and for the same reason.

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