Lots of Activity

I’ve been getting up and enjoying the beautiful mornings we’ve been having.  I let the dogs out and then take my pop outside and sit and enjoy the sound of the water flowing. 

We’ve been enjoying our grand daughter Hailey.  She has kept us busy, fishing, swimming, 4 wheel riding.  Hailey caught a nice size fish and she is so proud of it. 
  
Several campgrounds are filled up and the others are getting fuller every day.  Everyone is coming in to get ready for the big weekend.  For the park to be so full of campers.  This weekend will be very busy with lots of activities and lots of traffic. 

While Hailey and hubby were off fishing, i took the chance to clean up the camper and do a couple loads of laundry.  Tomorrow night Gabe and Kelsey will be here.
We are just enjoying the peacefulness of our campsite.

Road Trip

I was awaken around 6.30 am by hubby telling me to get up.  Ughhh .. i wanted to roll over and go back to sleep.  Of course that wasn’t happening as we have a long day of a road trip planned.  I drug myself out of bed and got ready to roll.  Remembering to get the dog leashes.  I have forgotten them before on a road trip :) 

We were on the road by 7.10 am and on our way to Illinois.  We went past the Big Store (it’s where we purchased our truck, trailer and 4 wheeler tires last year)  It was blazing and looked like not much of it was left.

We stopped to fill up with diesel and some how i lost $100 in cash!  I was not happy.  I had stuck it in my wallet folded up but when i went to pay for fuel i couldn’t find it.  Once we got to the truck i searched and searched but no luck.  My loss .. some one else gain :((

We arrived in Jerseyville to pick up our grand daughter Hailey around noon and then we stopped by to see our youngest son.  It was back on the road by 1 pm.  We stopped and got Pizza for lunch/dinner on the road for us and McDonald’s for Hailey.  We arrived home around 7 pm.  Over 600 miles and a 12 hour day.

Hailey wanted to go for a ride so drove around the camp grounds .. wow their all still pretty full for it being Sunday.  Seems everyone is already getting their big 4th of July spot.

We sat outside a bit while Hailey played but it was just too humid and hot so we retired inside where we played.  It’s 11.15 pm and Hailey just went to sleep so it’s off to dream world for me as well .. night all

Up to here with Google

Ughhh i am so feed up with google.  I can not post comments to my own blog or anyone else.  I try to sign in with my ID and then it takes me to sign in and then after i sign in it takes me right back there again. Once i do get to the post comment page and i type in the code requested it takes me right back to the beginning.  Why can’t google get their stuff together?  This has been happening for several weeks now and from I’ve been reading I'm not the only having these frustrations.

In order to post a comment i must sign in as Anonymous.  I do not like being Anonymous.  I have an identity and want to use it.  Come on google get your stuff together and get this problem fixed …. NOW!!!

Our new home for awhile

I was awaken around 8 am by the dogs this morning.  It was thundering and they were trying to snuggle closer and the end result is they woke me up :(  I couldn’t go back to sleep so i got up and listened to the rain.  It rained and then it seem like it was gonna stop and then it rained some more.  Hmmm It’s 10.45 AM and it still looks like it could rain again.  Looks like we may have a day of rain.  I decided to get some laundry going and then i dug out my flannel jammies as it’s chilly here.  My weather bug says it’s 63 degrees.  It may be a day of staying inside and being lazy.

I took several pictures of our campsite yesterday.  The first one you can see what our spot looks like.  The truck is parked on our spot but at the edge and next to the next campsite.  It provides a blocker for us from our neighbors in front of us.
  
Our first day being parked in Wilder was wonderful.  I enjoyed the wonderful breeze while sitting outside.  I was surprised that even though we are surrounded by campers, we actually have a secluded spot.  Our neighbors that are directly behind us seem to spend all their time inside.  We saw them come in and out.  I enjoyed my day of sitting outside most of the day.  In fact i sat outside until after dark.  I finally drug myself inside after 9 pm because i couldn’t see to read any more and turning on light just attracts bugs.  Plus I  was getting chilly. 
 
Can you see our satellite dish?   We have another camper parked directly behind us and trust me, they are very close .. you can walk through but not much more then that. When i look out my window next to my recliner all i can see is the tail end of that camper :(

As you seen the sun was shining on the front of our camper .. when we pulled into the site yesterday we had morning sun, but later in the afternoon it moves and we have a wonderful campsite to sit out side and enjoy cooking dinner. 

After dinner hubby went fishing and I could get pictures of him sitting in my lawn chair.

A breath taking view sitting in my lawn chair at my campsite.  I love being able to listen to the sound of the rushing water.  Of course that is when a 4 wheeler or noisy truck isn’t going through.

As you can see by these 2 photos the camp ground is pretty full, it’s actually quieter then i thought it would be .. of course I’m sure come this weekend and it will be booming with activities.

Enjoying a beautiful clear blue sky while sitting outside enjoying mother nature.
 
It did rain most of the early afternoon and finally the sun came out and we took a 4 wheeler around the campgrounds.  Their filling up and if they do not clear out this weekend, it might be tuff getting a spot next weekend for the big 4th of July bang.
We spent our evening visiting with friends.  After the rain cleared up it was a beautiful night.

Moved to Wilder

After a ruff night and not getting to sleep until after 4 AM, Finally yesterday my back started feeling better.  So I started packing things up so we could move.  The campgrounds here have either 30/60 day pads.  Our 30 day pad time has ran out.

Yesterday we had a new visitor in our yard.  He was moving pretty quick.  I moved up closer to get a better picture.
 
We were planning to move to Hill Country as we haven’t stayed in that campground since becoming members ( we did when we were guest) but when we arrived the spot with 50 amps a truck was parked on it.  So we headed to Wilder to see what was available and i seen the only 50 amp spot available and so i honked at hubby to stop (he was on the 4 wheeler)  We decided it wasn’t a (it) spot for us but we had to take what was available.  So we parked our 4 wheeler and a lawn chair on the pad to let others know it was taken.

We wasn’t sure our satellite or internet would work on this spot because of all the trees.  We went back and finished getting things ready and then we got setup in our new camp site.   We figured if satellite or internet wouldn’t work we would stay our 4 days and return to Lonesome Pines where we knew we could both.  To our surprise we have good cell phone signal, my MiFi internet works and we have satellite TV .. all is well.  I have afternoon shade for the living room which i just love.  There is plenty of room to park the truck, 4 wheelers and the kids will have a place to park when they arrive next week.  All is good.  Our neighbors are closer then we like and we have them on both sides and behind us.  We do not like having that many neighbors and this close but hey if i had to give up something it is my space .. lol

An added plus is we are not very far from the creek.  I walked Lexi over to check it out earlier and she loved it.  Later in the evening hubby hooked up the propane tank to the grill and cooked squash/zucchini, hot dogs and polish sausage for dinner. 

We have a wonderful breeze and so far i am very happy with my new spot.  If we didn’t have neighbors on top of us it would be a it!!

Researching Boondocking

I’m still down under the weather with my back.  We got a little bit of rain today, not sure it was enough to settle the dust.

Since I’ve been stuck indoors a lot lately with my back I’ve been researching what is all needed to do more extreme boon docking.  I would like to head to AZ/CA this winter and do a bit more of secluded adventures.  I want to experience Quartzsite and the Slabs .  Since I found the full –time lifestyle and dreamed of full – timing i have wanted to experience Quartzsite and the Slabs.  I want to experience what it is like to be among thousands of RV’s.  I want to see Salvation Mountain by Leonard Knight.  Hubby on the other hand has no desire.  He prefers to stay secluded, yet hooked up to shore power.  That is hard to do in RV Parks.  As it never fails we find a camp site where no one is and then behold here comes a neighbor to park on top of us. 

I purchased Brian Gore RV Boon docking Tips e-book.  I haven’t read the entire book yet, just took a glance.  I have also been surfing and reading anything i can find about boon docking and what is needed to do it without difficulty. 

We can stay a few days with out shore power as we have done that before but going 2 weeks at a time?  Hmmm   Battery and water will most likely be our biggest 2 problems.  We have spent a month at a National Forest and just had water and electric.  We dumped our tanks after 17 days, but i forgot we were on conserve mode the first 2 days, we still had room in our black tank but our gray tank was reading full (it wasn’t to the bubbling stage). 

I think my biggest concern is battery because we both enjoy being on our computers.   Hubby loves to keep up with all the local and national news on the computer and i enjoy following other blogs and etc.  Our morning routine includes a couple hours of computer time for each of us.  Hubby also enjoys his TV.  He has shows on Discovery that he doesn’t like to miss.  So that would mean a couple hours of TV every night including Satellite TV and computer time for me. 

We already have a big generator, but as I've read that is considered a nuisance to your neighbors if you have any.  Plus the expense of running it.  We have a 12 volt deep cell battery in our rig right now.  It is a true deep cell as i looked it up and called the company.  Hubby measured our compartment and hubby being a welder/fabricator could easily remove the brackets and put new ones in so that we could rearrange the batteries and could add 2 more.  Giving us 3 - 12 volt deep cells.  I know everyone says 6 volt is better but hubby thinks to start out we should just stay with the 12 volt system.  To go to a 6 volt system our battery bank would have to be moved to a new compartment and hubby isn’t sure he wants to go to the trouble or expense for something we are not sure about.  I agreed.

Once we find out if boondocking is for us and we (hubby) wants to do more of it then we can check into having our system changed out for the 6 volt system with solar panels.  I agree that going to that expense right now isn’t necessary as we are not sure that we will be extreme boondockers.

We are thinking of adding just a couple of small inventors like i use in the truck.  I can take the one from the truck and then purchase a bigger one for the living room.  Hubby could run cords to the battery that could be removed when not using.  Our bedroom has a 12 volt plug where I already use the inventor from our truck when we are stopping over night to run the bedroom tv, computer or cell phone chargers. Of course this is just temporary until we find out if boondocking is for us.  Then we would have a larger inventor installed into our rig for electrical outlets. 

I know we would need to purchase the collapsible water containers. For extra water as our fresh water tank is only 45 gallons and that isn’t much.  We would use the fresh tank for showering and dishes and the portable containers for drinking and cooking.  I never use water from fresh tank for drinking.  I have for cooking when i had to, but prefer not to.  I know it’s probably safe and we do put bleach in it from time to time but i prefer water that i know comes from a clean surface.  I already have a 5 gal container that we fill and use when we are in travel mode.  For that just in case situation.

Mud Bog

We started the morning off with a nice warm rain.  Then came out the sun and toys.  Our neighbor boys have some neat remote control toys.
 
In the common area beside us is these neat rocks that kids love to play on and these toys made an awesome time of playing and of course watching for me.
  
Later in the day we ventured out with friends Rick and Deb and went to watch the Mud Bog event. 
                                              

 The event was kicked off by letting some kids race crawling through the mud to see who could get to the finish line first.  Glad their not my kids .. :)) 

   
Ready set go …
 
The riders tried anything they could to get their bikes to go farther
 
The blue bike was injured and didn’t survive very well.  When he was pulled out he was losing some type of oil and his wheels were turned and wouldn’t go straight.  His attempt of continue to move instead of just stopping when he got stuck most likely has cost him thousands of dollars.

There wasn’t many bikes that entered the event, just mostly spectators who came to watch like us.  Although before the event was over most of them had left as it really wasn’t a good Mud Bog event.  They made the pit too deep to soon and all that really happened was the bikes got stuck less then 25 feet where they started.
  
Since they didn’t have many takers they did open the event to the crowd of course once again not many takers.  They did let a racing bike go through and he was allowed to back way back and get a really long run and made it through the pit both times.  Of course it was a very light weight bike with a very small person on it.  It basically flew through the pit.  Too fast for this ole lady to get a picture.  Then the second bike that went through ended up flipping from being allowed to get such along run at it.  Of course that closed tht down.

They also did take up a donation and it had to reach $500 to throw a board member into the mud pit and they reached their goal .. as far as I'm concerned it was the best event.  (No i didn’t get a picture .. by this time i was not in a picture taking mood)

As you can see the place was packed with spectators

Of course we had decided to leave early as the event wasn’t that great and it was very hot with the sun baring down.  Well .. our excitement started when we got to the truck and low and behold.  Rick and Deb had locked both their set of keys in the car.  We finally got a hanger and Rick told hubby the door unlocked the wrong way.  Over 2 hours later and the event over a friend Tony arrived with his neat toy and unlocked the truck.

I didn’t get any pictures as Deb and I escaped with our chairs to a shade tree.  I was glad that i had taken frozen tea with us.  I gave the extra one to Deb and we used them to stay cool and get a drink with.  We offered the guys but they were not happy campers.

They ended the event with a rope tug a war between members and the staff.  It was fun to watch and the staff actually won.  Good thing as their day wasn’t over yet. (No pictures my camera was in my chair under the shade tree).

It was back home, we were all hot, sweaty and very dirty from the dust.  The rain wasn’t enough to stop the dust.  So to the shower and call it a night.  There is a band playing at the Club House outside but i have had enough of the heat and humidity.  My back is hurting from walking on the uneven ground and I'm calling it an early night to bed for me.