Poor Patches on a Lazy Sunday

On a normal day, Denny washes dishes because I've fixed the meal. On moving day, I wash dishes because Denny has a lot of outside chores to do; emptying the holding tanks, putting away the two satellites dishes, unhooking the sewer, water and power cords, etc. So I do the dishes and Patches has come to learn that means kitty has to ride in the big truck and so she hides behind the couch in the trailer.

Today, since there was a truck stop/restaurant just down the street from our campground, Denny and I decided to pack up, pull out and have breakfast at the truck stop before we hit the road for Louisiana. Patches was happily sleeping in her "cube" when I snatched her up and handed her out the door to Denny, cube and all. She was not a happy camper.

Later we were forgiven, especially when Patches was taken out for a walk but then she got tossed back in the trailer because it was time for happy hour with Don and Vicki who bet us to the campground by about 45 minutes and ended up being across the driveway from us. Since it was obviously 5 o'clock somewhere in the world, Don broke out the frozen margarita making machine and the b-s session began.

Because you are not interested in pictures of slightly tipsy old people, we'll go for whatever my wandering eye culls from the collection today.

Denny and I spent one entire summer driving the roads on the perimeter of the lower part of Michigan. This is a cove near Holland, Michigan. The natives try very hard to keep the tourists from finding these wonderful beaches (kidding) as the roads leading to the beaches sometimes are marked simply as dead end roads.

The tiny Malad Gorge State Park in Hagerman, Idaho is one of those hidden gems that we had almost to ourselves for most of an afternoon. Places like this make some of our favorite memories.

Our stay in Alabama was very damp to say the least. To prove it, there were several interesting mushrooms growing in the campground. You already saw the blue ones, this orange one never grew beyond this shape and size.

Visiting Yellowstone on a cold late September day is great to get away from the normal crowds of tourists, but the steam created by the hot bubbling pools hides a lot of the pools. But it didn't obscure the snow-capped mountains in the distance.

There is no way I'd be in Oregon in late September, because driving in snow with 17,000 pounds of trailer behind us does not make for comfortable driving conditions. But summer in Oregon is lovely as is Mt. Bachelor peeking above the trees and this unnamed lake. The grayish-black rock is actually obsidian, which is glass formed from lava.

Zion; massive colorful rock formations, miles of hiking trails, a Japanese pied piper to entertain us at a weeping wall of rock. You might not come away with the same memories, but you'll leave impressed by the beauty that forced its way from the bowels of the earth so many eons ago.

There have been a surprising number of times when Denny and I have ended up at places where we were the only ones in the campground. Such was the case at The Narrows in Idaho. Out in the middle of nowhere, there were spectacular sunsets, a wonderful nature preserve, a round barn with a grove of trees that hid nesting great blue herons and baby quail feeding around our campsite.

Another shot taken at Zion National Park.