Cold Winds Up Here, Calm Winds Down There, Genny Gas, Lovely Lazy Day doing Some Home Stuff

On Wednesday, Dec. 5^th I was awake at 5:30 and couldn’t seem to drop back off. That’s okay though since I was in bed at 9:45 and felt slept out. At 6:10 I got up and sat at the table to finish yesterday’s post. I just had to add pictures as they seemed to be very slow to download last night. I find the internet up here is a bit sporadic but at least enough for us to do our basic things.

I flipped the Keurig on around 6:30 and made my tea just a few minutes before Bill got up and made his coffee. We read some blog posts and caught up on Facebook news before bundling up to go for our walk. Clemson got up around 7:30 and I only wore a sweater when I went out with him. The wind this morning made the 47F day seem much much colder. I felt frigid when I came back in after only about 5 minutes!

Bill started out with a warm hoodie and gloves

Bill and I were dressed well when we went out to meet Rob. The sun hadn’t popped over the mountain by 8:30 when we started out but as we walked out the ‘peak’ it hit us full force. The warmth from that alone warmed me up by 5 degrees. As we descended the sharp cliff and lowered ourselves into the valley, the temperature change was at least another 10 ↑.  We tried to talk Rob into leading but he preferred following so we made a group decision at every fork.

We were apparently walking in some river beds
as they got pretty narrow

At one point, we climbed a very rocky hill to see where we could go from the river bed we seem to have found ourselves in. Other than visualizing where the camp was from the top of the hill, I was able to get a shadow picture of the 3 Amigos. Some may call us Stooges but that wouldn’t be very nice, now would it? We decided to retrace our steps and stay safe rather than take any chances going up and down the cross country to our units.

If I didn't keep moving, I'd lose them around the next bend

Pat texted 30 minutes into our walk just to make sure we were all doing okay so I sent her the following picture informing her that we had just nicely turned back for home. I loved this walk today, the rocks along our path displayed reds, browns, whites and we even saw some green coloured stone. We snapped a couple of pictures and trekked homeward, arriving by 9:30 and checked our steps, heart rate and mileage. Successful hike #3!

We're doing fine here, Pat!

And from atop the cliff, we could see the camp across the way
You can see it too in the top right corner of the picture

I hopped in the shower and relished at how wonderful that felt. You sure can’t complain about the water pressure from our pumps. I tried not to use more water than necessary with the biggest concern being getting the shampoo and crème rinse out of my hair. If we were boondocking more, I’d mix up my homemade shampoo and conditioner as it is much easier to rinse and uses less water.

Rob took a nice picture of us

Today is our last day here and we are taking it easy. I like that. We don’t have far to go in the morning but we’ll start packing up this afternoon. I remembered that I had enough sausage casserole left in the fridge for both of us so pulled some mini sausages out of the freezer to have with it. The small pieces in the casserole somehow disappeared and next time I won’t cut them so small. It was a wonderful breakfast!

So, I took a nice one of him too

After dishes were done, Bill and Rob drove in to fill up Rob’s gas can. Bill did the head smack thing when he realized a couple of weeks ago that he forgot to bring his can. It was a blonde…..er, age overlook, I guess. We’ll pick one up down the road so we don’t need to use Rob’s but we sure appreciate that we can in the meantime.

All the caves are cool but I loved the
moss around this one

I wanted to empty a cupboard up over the sofa and see if I can re-organize a bit better. Things tend to move around up there more than we like. So, I moved things around and made use of a wire rack that I had. I’ve tried to find another use for it once I got a better one for our dinner plates. I’ll see if the photo albums up here stay put a little better now. 

We'll try this anyway and see if things on the bottom shelf still shift

Next, I tidied up in the under-bed storage. A couple of sea grass baskets made me curious what all I kept in there. Nothing to get rid of though but taking inventory is good practice.

Remember the Christmas stocking I bought for Clemson?
Well, this doggy face was on his old felt one that Marian H. made for him
years ago
So, now it is his official stocking and Santa can come to him now

Then I fiddled with the cleaning kit for my Canon, trying diligently to get rid of the two spots that have shown up on my pictures. Obviously, I have a dirty lens but trying to find it is never easy. I worked at it for 30 minutes and kept taking sky pics to see if I got it. Nope, I got rid of one spot but the oldest one won’t budge. Makes me wonder if it is a scratch on the lens. I’ve spent enough time on it today, I’ll try again another time as it seems to me that I’ve been through this trial and error before and finally succeeded.

Bill puts our portable solar panel away

Clemson posed so I could set up the tripod for our selfie

Before we knew it, the day had zipped by and after Bill and Rob put some outside stuff away Pat and Rob accepted our invite to a last indoor Happy Hour here at Lone Tree. It was a day for tea and we all had one. We talked about Clemson’s little quirks and even Lady Girl’s funny things. She was their precious pooch whom we met only once. Clemson is a lot like she was. We also covered a few other subjects during their visit. I managed to get a picture of all 4 of us together without any goofy faces. That is a treat in itself!

What a happy group of friends!

After H.H. Bill lit the Weber around 4:45 and began grilling the pork chops. They were thin loin chops with a small bone, the kind that I like best. I steamed some broccoli for myself and prepped a garden salad for Bill. We were eating a few minutes after 5 and enjoyed every morsel. 

Supper was good and fairly quick to prepare

After dishes I got bowls out for ice cream. We deserve it tonight, just because we are very happy. Besides the obvious, I’ll tell you why someday.

I wanted to share this picture from the other day
Clemson goes to Rob to get his neck scratch

It’s been another great day and we’ll be pulling up stakes tomorrow and moving a few miles down the road. Check in then to see what we’re up to.

This is a cool sheltered rock formation

Teddy bear cholla on the walk today, shedding a lot of babies

Thank you for popping in.