Comings and Goings

This is our 1,200 Post!  Too bad that it is not more interesting.  BOL!

Most campers agree that part of the fun of living in a campground is watching people come and go.  The most entertaining part is usually watching people arrive and setup.  Yes, it doesn't take much to entertain us.  BOL!  The first week we were here, no one came or went.  BORING!  The second week we actually saw people leave.  Last Friday, a lady came in with a big fifth wheel.  Her site was across from us.  Mama saw that she was having problems, so she went outside to try and help her.  The lady was beyond frustrated.  There was a passenger who stood outside, but did not give her any hand signals.  Mama tried to help her, but she was beyond help at that point.  There was a crowd of people standing outside just watching.  Mama was aggravated that none of the men offered any help. The campground owner showed up and he actually took over the driving for the woman.  It actually took him several tries before he was able to get the fifth wheel backed in.  It turns out the lady had three kids and three dogs in the truck.  Wow!  I bet she was stressed before she even tried to back that rig in its spot.  She left on Sunday and while it took her a very long time to get ready, she left without any issues.

Yesterday, an older man and his wife moved into the site. He had a ton of problems, too!  The owner had to come out and help him.  We have decided the large rocks lining the road must be the issue.  He finally just drove through the grass and backed in that way.   It took him at least ten tries.  He left this morning, so we will probably get to see someone else do it later.  It was sure a lot of work for someone just spending the night.


Saturday, Dad ended up going into work for a problem.  He was there all day.  As soon as he got home, he left again for dinner.  The folks went to Momma's Catfish and Pies.  It is a hole in the wall place.  Mama had chicken fried steak, fried green beans and mashed potatoes.  Dad had blackened catfish.

 They both said it was good.  Mama really liked the fried green beans.  She dipped them in ranch dressing.  No pictures of Dad's food.  He ate it before Mama realized.  No leftovers for us.

Sunday, the folks decided to drive to the George W. Bush Library so that Mama could get her Presidential Library passport book stamped. They had visited last year, but she didn't have a passport book then.  They had to pay $7 to park and then they had to go through security, and then stand in line for the stamp.  BOL!  Was it worth it?  I guess so.  It is the only way to get the book stamped and she wanted it done.  She only has to do one more to have all the stamps of the libraries that they have visited, which is five.  There are eight that they have not seen.  She also bought a magnet which was $7.95.  She collects magnets and is now collecting them from every Presidential library. 

George W. Bush and his father.

Outside the museum.

This is the all important stamp.

They then drove to their favorite Mexican restaurant in Texas, Pappasitos. 

Steak Burrito - no cheese in their burritos which is odd to the folks.  Also, fajitas do not have green peppers.  It seems to be a Texas thing.

 We are ready for Halloween or you?

Joey,
The Greyhound Who Needs To Dust Off His Halloween Costume

Where Have All Our Blogger Friends Gone?

We have noticed in the past year that several of our favorite bloggers have either quit or really scaled back on their blogs. Okay, we haven't been blogging as much either, but we think it is their fault. If they were still blogging we would feel more motivated.  Yep, that is our story and we are sticking to it.  BOL!  We miss our blogger friends and we have thought of quitting too.  However, our blog is now a record of our travels (2.5 years today!) and we like to refer back to it and remember those trips.   So, for now we will continue, but we don't like to blog about nothing or repeat the same sort of thing time after time so that is why our blogging isn't as much right now.

So, what is new with us?  Well, we are still at the ranch living with the alpacas.  We have learned that the guard dogs are submissive to the alpacas and that is the way it is supposed to be.  It doesn't make since to us.  Gus, the main guard dog, does not like dogs and he will bark his head off at us.  Recently, they added Clarabelle to help Gus.  The vet said that he was loosing too much weight running along the fence keeping dogs away from his alpacas.  He is training Clarabelle.  Clarabelle got in big trouble from him for putting her front feet on the fence so that Mama could pet her.

Gus getting ready to tell Clarabelle she is being bad.

Clarabelle trying to get some attention.

Clarabelle

Gus

Mama was given all the names of the alpacas, but the paper got wet and the ink ran so no more names.  BOL!

Close up of alpaca.

The weather has been cool in the mornings, so we have been enjoying time outside.  It has been pretty boring except last week we heard rustling of leaves and then a dog screaming and then a rabbit came through the fence right at us.  Yep, that was pretty darn exciting!

I hear something!

A rabbit and a dog! 

I decided to get closer to the action, but then I got attacked by ants.

Scout wasn't impressed by the rabbit.

Last night, Dad worked on our portable AC unit.  We are testing it today to see if it works any better.  It seems to be so far, but we will know better in a few hours. 

Pretty, don't you think?  BOL!

He put a plastic box on the the side vent. Inside the box are two hoses.  There are a total of three hoses now and they all go into a window.  I think the two hoses bring in air and the one hose pushes air out or maybe it is the other way around.  Eventually, we want to add an AC unit to our roof and then we will get rid of the portable AC.  It is always nice to have a spare AC unit. 

Mama says we have more to say, but we will save it for another day.  If we don't we probably won't have enough material for another blog post this week.  BOL!

Oh, before we go, I am supposed to say this:  HAPPY GOTCHA DAY, SCOUT!  Seven years ago today, she made her way from Tulsa to St. Louis and moved in with the folks and Jack. I wasn't even alive when she did all that.

Scout being told it is her Gotcha Day.  She then demanded a treat.  BOL!

Joey,
The Greyhound Who Is Glad Mama Didn't Buy Him The Pink Cowboy Hat She Saw At Wally World

Life At The Ranch

It is rather boring here.  We have been staying inside as much as possible due to the heat.  It was 95 yesterday.  The Rams played the Cowboys yesterday, so the folks stayed home with us and watched it.  The Rams were winning 21-0 and then they blew it.  It was a great game according to the Cowboy fans here.  BOL!

Mama has been telling Dad that she thinks using the portable AC unit along with our regular AC actually makes it warmer in here.  He didn't believe her until yesterday. The bedroom was 85 and the living area was 80.   He came up with an idea to add a second hose to it. She Googled it and sure enough other people have done the conversion. She hopes Dad will try it.

Today, it is actually cooler, so we were able to sit outside.

Oh, would you like to see our site?

We have a pretty big yard.

Want a quick tour of our campground?

This is the office.

Laundry room.  It is really nice.

There are still more areas to take photos of, so we need to do that sometime.

We were approached by the paparazzi today.  Yep, some people asked if they could take our picture.  We demanded to be petted for payment.

Mama was finally able to catch up on all of Dad's laundry.  She asked him to wash it before he left Florida since he had a washer and dryer in his room. He told her it would just get wrinkled in his luggage.  She asked him if he could wash his whites then.  He washed his work socks, but then he left them behind.  They had to go out and buy him new socks and then she had to wash those.  He did not save her any time. The biggest problem with doing laundry is that Mama doesn't like to dry Dad's clothes, so she hangs them to dry. There is only so much room to hang things.  She figured out a solution though. She took suction cups and hung them on the mirrored closet doors.  Dad hung other hooks over the bed.  She can easily hang about 10 things in the bedroom and two things in the living room.  It looks a little cluttered, but it works.

This is how the bedroom looked almost every day last week while Mama caught up on the laundry.

Oh, why didn't she use the laundry room here?  It is a pretty long walk even with her wagon.  Buddy needs gas, so she can't use him.  She still would have to hang the clothes here to dry, so it is just easier to do it in our washing machine.

Joey,
The Greyhound Who Just Can't Get Away From The Paparazzi

Where Are We Now?

We left Missouri on Sunday.  We drove for about ten hours and spent the night in Oklahoma City.  The place we stayed was just off the highway and it was cheaper than most places.  However, we ended up having to buy an additional sewer hose from them because the way their pull-thrus were set up, our two hoses were not long enough.  Yep, we needed three hoses.  It turned out not to be cheaper after that, but Dad said we needed a new hose anyway.  Mama wasn't sure how safe the park was. She thought we were next to a housing project, but Dad said it was a motel.  Yep, it was a motel, but they definitely need to hire someone to pick up the trash from the yard.  Also, we saw some people going through the dumpsters before the sun came up. 

The next day, we only had about a two and half hour drive.  Wow!  That is a short drive for us.  We stopped at one gas station and that was it.  It was an easy drive except we passed the entrance to our campground because Tom Tom said it was on the left and it was really on the right and the entrance was not well marked.  We were on a Farm to Market Road so we were concerned about finding a place to turn around.  Finally, we found a cowboy church with a huge parking lot and we were able to turn "Meredith" and the Jeep around. 

Where are we?

Yep, we are back in Texas and let me tell you, it is HOT!  It should be better next week, but this week we are in the 90's with high humidity and dew points.  We are hoping for some rain today.

There was some confusion when we arrived here.  They were sold out and the people who were in our reserved site decided not to leave.  Mama didn't think it was right that they were allowed to stay since we have been in places where we were told we had to leave if someone else had reserved our site.  They had someone who had reserved a spot for a month and left.  He had asked for his money back and they said no.  They decided to give us his spot. They attempted to contact him several times without a response.  Dad didn't want to set up all the way until we knew for sure we could stay in the spot.  Dad finally told them that if they couldn't tell us the spot was ours, we were going to leave.  They finally decided that if the guy came back, he would have to be moved elsewhere.  They also gave him his money back to smooth things over.

There is a large amount of land here, but not that many campsites.  Probably 98% of the people here are long term.  We haven't seen anyone new come in since our first day.  There is one open spot now.  The camp hosts are very nice, but the residents keep to themselves.  We might meet people when the weather cools off.  A few people have waved to us, but most people ignore us.  I guess they don't take kindly to outsiders.  One lady kind of grunted to us.  Mama said she did the same to the host, so it is not just us.

The most unique thing about the park is they have alpacas.  They also have a dog that doesn't want us to get close to his alpacas.  Scout wants to run with the dog, but Mama told us he is not playing with us when he runs back and forth.  It looks like he is playing to us.

Yesterday, we visited the dog corral.  That is what they call the dog run.

Us in the dog corral.

We will take more photos when it cools off.  The buildings here are pretty neat looking.

Joey,
The Greyhound Who Is Glad The AC Is Working

Together Again

Mama says our vacation is over.  Dad is back home.  BOL! 

We stayed at the KOA in Eureka, MO while Dad worked in Florida for 11 days. We normally do not stay at KOA's because they are pretty pricey.  However, Mama said she didn't want to stay at the campground we normally stay when we visit home because she didn't think she would feel safe there without Dad.  The KOA people gave us three nights free along with other KOA discounts, so the price wasn't terrible.

Mama loves Eureka because she lived there for 10 years and it is near so many other places.  She went shopping several times and ate at all her favorite restaurants.

Scout and I enjoyed the campground.  We met two other greyhounds while we were there.  The campground had a decent fenced area.  They had a place for the "city dogs" and another for the "country dogs".  Any idea which one I am?

I am definitely the city dog.

Scout preferred the tree, so she is the country dog.  BOL!

The campground has really nice cabins and they even have a caboose they rent out.

It was occupied almost every day.

Kids can mine for gold, fossils or whatever they might find in a bag that they purchase from the store.  It was pretty popular.

Our site.

Our view.

The park was very busy and we had neighbors most of the time.  We met a lot of nice people.  We had a very large area to walk. There was a cemetery just over the fence from us and Mama and I would stop and read the stones.  Many of the stones were from the 1800's.  Mama finds it interesting because she does genealogy.

Scout was happy when the temperatures cooled down.

Dad came home at midnight on Friday.  I didn't give him the cold shoulder this time.  Saturday, he took us to a meet and greet.  We got to see our friends from GCMO.

Here we are at the meet and greet. It was exhausting!

We left this morning for our next destination.  Mama says we are going to see alpacas.  What are alpacas?

Joey,
The Greyhound Who Is Happy That His Family Is All Together Again