Trees

I like trees. I carry the Golden Fields Guides book of "Trees of North America" to try to identify species I'm not familiar with when we're in a new area. But when we pull into a campground with a lot of tall trees, I know I'm in trouble with Denny because it means we'll have a hard time trying to get both satellite dishes up and honed in on a good signal. You see, I'm the one who chooses all the campgrounds, therefore I'm responsible when there are too many trees. Heh.

Yesterday, we pulled into the campground and were directed to the area that had the best satellite reception. It was a cleared area, surrounded by tall trees. Now, when setting up you not only have to consider the trees that might block the view to the southern sky, you have to look for trees and bushes on the site to make sure they are not located so as to block your slide outs when you open them, how far away the electric power box is from your connection on the rig since the length of the power cord is limited, and how to park to allow room for our truck on the site. Whew! After guessing which way the satellites would be aimed, we pulled into a site, got all set up; electricity and water connected, sewer line set up, king pin hitch brace on, slides out, etc., and then Denny pulled out the compass we use to aim the satellite dishes and discovered the one tree that was two sites down was the one tree that was going to block our satellite dishes. Oh man! Talk about ticked! But we managed by careful maneuvering to get both dishes up and running but have now added a new item to our list of things to do when preparing to move to a new campground; take the compass with us, preset to the headings for the next campground so when we are assigned a site we can check to see which way the dishes will be pointed and if any trees will be a problem. You don't have to worry about this in Arizona as there are no big trees!

This doesn't sound like camping, does it? Well, we don't camp, we travel in our home to see the country. It just so happens our home has wheels. So we have the creature comforts of a stationary home and enjoy them, albeit with a bit of hassle occasionally.