Merry Christmas.....

Our Location:  Near Borrego Springs, CA


Merry Christmas to everyone! We noticed Santa streaking across the sky in the wee hours, or at least I assume it was Santa, he seemed to be doing a zig zag pattern as I watched and truly the low flying object wasn’t an airplane or they had decorated it with antlers for the holiday season. 

Christmas morning Sunrise, Borrego Springs, California

The moon on Christmas Morning.

 

Morning found a few rain drops falling, just a patter, patter, patter, nothing too much. The wind has picked up and has been pretty steady most of the day. Not a lot of wind but enough to make us know it’s around.
 

Out the living room window.

 

The morning sun playing in the fog/clouds. 

 

A few morning pictures of the sunrise before starting to call back to the winter wonder land that is Ontario. Calls to Rick & Barb, Dad, Jan & Rick, Bradey & David, Courtney & Matt, Linda & Randy and Janet & Dennis here in California all filled a few hours this morning. Snow on Manitoulin Island, a few fine flurries in Lively, nothing in Castor Centre nor Toronto/Hamilton area. Seems Santa found his way to the homes of the above mentioned and it seems they fooled him for another year by being on the ‘good’ list. Either Santa can’t read or he’s getting some bad information regarding which lists some of these folks should be listed on!

Can you see the rainbow?

This is a different rainbow.

 

Riley and I had no plans of any kind and so we just kind of lazed about. No hikes today, a day off. We did journey into Borrego Springs and sure enough there were things open, a gas station, a grocery store, a convenience store and the laundromat had folks in it as well. A quick stop at Christmas Circle to rid us of some smelly trash had us seeing numerous leaves on the green grass. The wind has been tearing them off the trees there. It looked so odd to see them as the grass is usually pristine with nothing marring it’s beauty.

Fog and clouds hung in and around the mountain tops for most of the morning.

Love the shades, shadows and the rainbow as well.

 

 The day was overcast until about 2 pm. We had some rain for 10 minutes, nothing too much but one would have been damp had they been outside in it. The clouds/fog in the mountain tops kept me snapping photos off and on all day. The sun playing it’s wonders with shadow and shade on the mountains also kept me amused. We witnessed at least 2 different rainbows as well. Lots of pictures today. 

 

I love the sunlight in this picture.

 

Such a difference in the mountains depending on the light.

 

Riley and I played Battleship this afternoon for an hour or so. It’s a new game for us and Riley is working at the strategy of the game. We were going to take it with us into town and play a game or two at the tables in Christmas Circle but the wind and over cast skies kept us from doing so. Perhaps tomorrow or another day.

One could almost imagine that might snow way up there on the mountain top, but it isn't.

This looking toward Rockhouse Road, those mountains are usually dark and stately.

  

Lunch was a salad of course, followed by mashed potatoes, stuffing and ham. We had no desire to do anything much and we were quite happy with our limited menu. We of course had Strawberry Jello to finish off the meal. Simple easy lunch. 

Amazing the difference sun, fog, clouds and shadow's make.

The same mountains as above.

 After that we read, watched out the window and just enjoyed the peace of the afternoon. So a very quiet Christmas here in Borrego Springs, California. I hope you all had a most joyous day no matter where you are or who you are with. Great family, good friends, health, love, peace, a roof over your head, and food in your belly. What else could we ask for? 

The sun is starting it's descent.

 

Thanks for stopping by, I hope you enjoyed your visit.
 

It slips behind the horizon.

 

Until next time…take care, be safe,

 

The fire is fading.

 

Deb

Last day here.......REFERENCE POST

Our Location: 

BLM near Carlsbad, NM

I was awake around 6 am MDT but didn't get up. I was lazy and since there was no brightening in the skies I figured a cloudy day was in the offing. I grabbed my laptop and read blogs for a while. I can tell you that I finally closed the lid and turned on the water for a hot drink just shortly after 8 am. 

I don't think the clock works well....

I see a circus coming to town Matey......

We had plans this morning to find a place to rid us of our trash and to fill the Big Dog's water bowl. I can say we accomplished that feat within a few miles of our current location. Fuel was $3.19 per gallon and while I probably could have found it cheaper down the road tomorrow I am happy to have a full tank starting the day. 

On the way back home we checked out the other 'free' campsite area in this location. It's on Whites City Road and I can say that we wouldn't be staying there. However I will use this as a reference post again for future use or just information for others. 

Whites City Road is a hard packed dirt road (it may have been black top on gravel once) that is rough and somewhat washboard like, although not as ugly as it sounds. I would think after a rain it would be more muddy than anything else. There is a bit of dust but not much. We made note of two or possibly 4 spots that were okay sites for staying. The first two were best but close to the main road. The second two were further back but are currently being used by the construction company working/worked on the road. It appears they've buried something (possibly pipe lines but no signs indicating such) along the road. These two sites have been beaten up by the use of big trucks and we didn't see any fire pits there but all indications are they were once sites.  The other issue with this road is the quarry a bit further back. It's a working pit I would imagine the noise level would not be nice going all day. Numerous trucks of varying sizes are also visible. We went further back past the quarry but didn't see anything of interest although I'm certain there were other places further back. It would be too far off the main road on this less than wonderful road. So there you have it, not our cup of tea but definitely a couple of good over night spots if you could find some how to get level. 

 

Riley loves the Aliens...

She doesn't care what colour.....

We are parked at MM 10 on the east bound side of the roadway but there is no way to get to the road going west unless you go to MM 9 and make a U turn before coming back on the East bound road. Actually that's not quite true, there is no LEGAL turn road but many have simply crossed over the dirt median to get to/from the West bound lanes. It's a pretty big bump though and so you would need to be very careful. We did check out a well paved road just after using that LEGAL turn around over the median. I have no idea what it's called but it's between MM 9 and 10 east bound. There looks like a couple of spots that would be good for overnight but no signs of fire pits. If you think one of the side roads offers a spot, forget it, they lead to oil wells with no spots available. 

 

I believe this is a bat....

I think that one may be a chuck wagon...

So there you have it, our little tour of the day. We went less than 6 miles to get some fuel at a place that is between the roadway and the Cavern Parking lot. Multiple little things to see, an RV park there also, no idea the name though. 

Back home we noticed only ONE other rig, when we came back. There had been two when we left. The lone rig sits close to the road and is also a 5'er. Otherwise no one else is here, not a tent to be seen anywhere either. 

I'm guessing these are rental units. 

Tomorrow we'll be pulling out and making our way to a free overnight in Crosbyton, TX. We found this park courtesy of Ken and Shirley (Seeing America with Ken and Shirley) , so thanks for the heads up folks!! We'll actually be staying for two nights before getting back on the road as the wind is forecast to be pretty high and gusts will also be making life miserable for any drivers in the area from Sunday afternoon into Monday. Tuesday looks to be a great travel day.  Why do we not stay where we are located you may ask and I will say that we are heading toward Tennessee and that will be 250 miles closer for us. We hope that the two night stay will be a bit less rock 'n roll like as we will maybe have some protection from the town buildings, other RV's etc. Here we are out in the open with no where to hide. Also we're that much closer to getting out of the wind tunnel areas and flat lands. We will be on the road fairly early as the winds here are supposed to be minimal then, and be off the road by 3 pm hopefully before they pick back up.

So there you have it, thanks for stopping by. I hope you've managed to have a wonderful day. 

 

The Whites City Road location for free camping. See the quarry? That pile of gravel I believe is in one of the camping spots. The other picture is the road way, looks good but is a bit rough.

Until next time.... take care, be safe, 

Deb

Ohio, snow, rain, brrrrrr........

Our Location: Punderson State Park, Newbury, Ohio

(Thursday April 6, 2017 post)

I slept very well last night, Riley apparently woke and fell back to sleep often. The rain, the wind and the occasional flapping or banging of something seemed to be the culprit for her. I woke to steady rain, and the sound of a diesel big rig pulling out of the lot. It cooled off during the night enough that I got up around 3 am and closed the living room window but had no trouble falling back to sleep.

With the rain and the wind looking as if they might continue all day we decided to pull out and at least give it a try, if it wasn’t good traveling we could always back off. At 9 am we pulled in the slides, locked up, chugged our way over to the gas bar to fill up with diesel. About 15 minutes later we were on the road.

Still in Kentucky, in Covington actually, heading down the long grade to the bridge over the river into Cincinnati, Ohio

The day passed rather the same as yesterday except rain was pretty much an annoying mist and slop from the passing vehicles. Not enough to turn the wipers on fully and to much to turn them off completely. The temps however were much lower coming in at a high today of 43F/6C  and at times it dropped lower to about 37F/3C. A steady side/head wind buffeted us pretty much the whole day. The wind was from the north and we traveled north east all day long. We were also in the foot hills which made the roadway almost like a wind tunnel at times. However it was not dangerous and at no time did I feel unsafe. We travel with the Dogsled in tow mode, I set the cruise at 55 mph/85 km and with the engine brake we stayed pretty much right there.

We stopped a few times but with the cold temps they weren’t long stops. ~laugh~ I even pulled out our mittens, we wore heavy sweaters and I think Riley has also pulled her footed tights. With the heat cranked inside the cab we were pretty toasty.

Heading into Cincinnati, Ohio but still in Covington, KY

Riley managed a nap for a bit this afternoon. I’m sure it must be difficult to sit there for such long periods but she brings things to occupy herself as well. She’s turning into quite the GPS expert and can usually find whatever we’re looking for if she’s not rushed. She’s the go to person while we travel, she’s the water boy, the snack giver, the navigator, the sign watcher and the communications expert. She wears a number of hats each time we start out in the Dogsled. She is becoming very good at road signs and helping me to determine which lane we should be for upcoming changes, she also have figured out the ‘exit only’ signs and will point out I should get over one lane. ~laugh~ I tell her in advance which is our next city (for directional purposes, even if we aren’t going to go that far or thru that city) and she’s pretty good at determining from the signs what we need. It’s something I’ve been encouraging every day that we were out and about in the Dogsled. I’m not sure how much she will retain when we arrive back on the island where road signs are few and interchanges are non existent. However it’s something she’s picked up over the past few months and I’m very proud of her for doing so.

Today while Miss Riley was napping I saw a car in the medium against the wire banged up on both ends, no ambulance but a couple of state troopers with flashing lights were on scene. Traffic was backed up a bit on the other side but not our side. Ohio is the one state in which speeders are ticketed on a pretty consistent basis. I don’t think we travelled for more than 50 miles at one stretch without seeing someone pulled over. At one of the rest stops it was a tight squeeze between the back of a state trooper’s vehicle and the big rig parked along the edge of the parking surface. The trooper obviously followed a trucker into the lot and was giving him some grief, in fact he still had his roof rack lights on while sitting in the rest stop parking area. I counted 7 different sets of blues whirling in the air in less than 10 minutes. Smokey never sleeps. ~laugh~

Crossing the river into Cincinnati,Ohio

Our arrival at Punderson State Park was at about 3:30 pm EST as we crossed back into our own time zone yesterday. The park is very nice and I’m sure lovely in the summer time when the leaves are out, the air is hot and the sun is shining. However right now it’s cold, windy and damp. The forecast is calling for snow and I’m certain it’s falling outside now. Full hook ups in the RV world means water, electric and sewer, here at Punderson it means water and electric and according to a fella I spoke with camping here the new water spigots don’t work properly, the springs aren't heavy enough to keep the handles up and the back pressure causes the water to blow out the valve and releases the handle back to the closed position. Needless to say that’s not a good thing. The ranger told this fella that it’s to encourage people to fill their fresh water tanks and not just rely on the water hook up. I thought that was rather foolish. Some of the sites have the new water connection that stands about 3 feet out of the ground, with a feature that allows them to drain back out in the cold weather so there is no need to winterize them. They’ve had either a huge snow melt or lots of rain here as the ground is very soft everywhere. One has to be very careful about not getting on the grass or one might need some assistance in getting out. ~laugh~

Riley set up the inside of the Igloo including turn on the heater (brrrrrr) while I was outside setting up the electric and water. I wrapped the water line in insulation foam to hopefully keep it from freezing. I then gathered our garbage of which we had a lot walked off to find the dumpster.  I also found the Iron Ranger (pay station) with the little cards to fill out and drop in the box. Like the fella I chatted with earlier, I thought the price was half the regular price right now but he said no, it’s a full $34/35 per night, plus $10 for a dump fee. I disagree with the dump fee since I’m parking here and paying to stay and so I didn’t include that fee in my payment. We’re only staying two nights and we won’t have to dump here. I’m looking for a spot closer to the border in which to camp with full hook ups and I’ll dump there.

Some green here in the rolling hills of Ohio.

I called my dad tonight to tell him of our arrival here. He worries and it’s a small thing to call him and let him know we’re safe and sound. It sounds as if they are getting the same kind of weather there as here but with a bit warmer temps there. They are just finishing up the maple sap run for the spring. Everything is boiled and needing to be strained/cleaned but their season is now complete. The buckets and spiles are being removed, cleaned and put away for another season. I’m looking forward to having some McMurray Maple Syrup in the near future.

The long range forecast is cold for Friday with some tricky weather for driving, and we’re staying put. Saturday the temps are going to reach mid 50F/10C, and Sunday, Monday they are pointing to 70F/20C, so we just have two nights and one day to get thru before the weather is decent again. Tomorrow I’ll hook up the propane heater to help keep us toasty.

Some cloudy skies overhead

Due to the weather I’m not sure if we will venture into the Rock ’n Roll Hall of Fame, it’s 30 miles away. We shall however see what the day brings.

As I write this it’s snow/rain mix but with the drop in temps I’m sure it will be snow before much longer. To think we left 80F/25C just a few days ago makes me shiver all the more. I’m sure the Big Dog is wondering what the hell is going on, it’s been a southern truck all it’s short life. ~laugh~

Further north from Cinnci there is little signs of spring.

Once again the Dogsled did great on fuel consumption with having traveled todays 320 miles on about 2/3’s of a tank of fuel. Considering the conditions I think it did great and I’m very pleased with it.

So on that note, I’m going to sign off. Thanks for stopping by, hope you enjoyed your visit. Stay warm, stay out of trouble and stay in touch. Until next time…be safe, take care…