Bye Bye California!

We were supposed to stay in California until the end of February, but the job ended early.  Mom was more than ready to leave.  It is so expensive!  Our rent wasn't terrible like in San Francisco, but we had to pay electric here.  We didn't there.  Mom asked several times what the rate was, but she could never get the answer.  She found out that it changes each month.  How can that be?  It is also on a tiered plan.  The more you use, the higher the rate.  The rate starts out at $.10 a kilowatt which is cheap, but then it goes up to $.30 a kilowatt.  Want to guess which rate we were at most of the time?  They also charge an additional fee.  Mom found out that it is a fee that the park just adds to the bill.  That is a first for us. We paid $445 for five weeks of electricity. Their fee was $119.  The final week there, we switched over to using our propane because we found out a guy would come by to fill up our tank.  It would have been cheaper to use propane the whole time, but unless a truck comes to your site, it is difficult to get if filled. While we really liked Southern California, we were ready to get the heck out of the state.

We left on Saturday and drove to Picacho, AZ.

We stayed at a KOA. 

Frankie's Restaurant

 They had a real restaurant on site.  The folks ate there and really enjoyed their steak dinner.  They said it was better than some steak houses.

The steaks were grilled here.

I liked the dog park.

On Sunday, we had planned to stop in El Paso but the weather changed our minds.  High winds were predicted for Monday, so we drove two more hours and stayed in Van Horn, TX for two nights.  We drove longer on Sunday because we decided to stay parked on Monday.  That meant our drive on Tuesday would be much longer than planned.

This was the rest area where we ate lunch on Sunday.  It was windy there.

View from the rest area.

We were given a site with a nice view of the sunrise.

Our view.

Mom and I sat outside before the wind kicked up.

Yep, it got windy and dusty.

 We are not sure how high the gusts were, but they had been predicted to possibly be 60-80 mph and that is way too windy to drive a motor home.

 We bought our slides in because the wind was making our slide toppers fly up too much.  We were scared they would tear.  It got quite cozy inside. 

We were able to leave on Tuesday.  It was still windy.  We watch the sun come up as we drove down the highway.

Tuesday was a long day of driving, but we arrived safely at our destination near Dallas around 5 p.m. We are staying near the place that we have stayed two times in the past, so we know the area.  The folks are excited to be able to eat at their favorite restaurants again.

Joey,
The Greyhound Who Still Needs A Cowboy Hat

I Kissed A Pig And I Liked It!

Mom and I were out walking and what did we see?  A pig!  Yep, a pig.  What did I do? Well, I did what I always do.  I sniffed her behind, of course.  Then, I kissed her.  Mom said I should have kissed her first.  :::shrugs shoulders:::

Lily who is 8 months old.  She is from Illinois.

Other than kissing the pig, it has been a normal day.

Joey,
The Greyhound Who Thinks It Would Be Fun Living With A Pig

Hummingbirds - I Hate Hummingbirds!

Mom put up a hummingbird feeder here.  She was very excited.  We immediately had a lot of customers.  I was not happy. Why?  Because hummingbirds are bees in a bird costume!  Okay, they don't sting, but they love to fly by my head and they make that buzzing sound.  I snapped at one.  I sure did!  After that, I decided that laying in the sun was not worth it if it means dealing with those big "bees".

The hummingbirds that have been coming to our feeder are "Anna's Hummingbird".  In Missouri, we have the "Ruby Throated Hummingbird".

Unfortunately, or fortunately in my case, a cat caught one of these "big bees" and took off with it.  Mom was upset.  I thought it was karma because the hummingbirds had harassed me by buzzing my head.

Joey,
The Greyhound Who Hates Hummingbirds

Finally Climbed The Hill

I finally convinced Mom we needed to climb this huge hill.  Why?  Well, I wanted to see what was up there. 

Climbing the hill.

Most of the way up.

A view of the store from the hill.

We can see our RV from here.  See the spot that is marked "US" in red?  That is our RV.

There really wasn't much to see up there.  Just RVs and the view.  While we were up there, we heard the faint sound of an RV alarm going off.  Mom wondered if it could be ours.  We started making our way down the hill. The alarm kept getting louder. the closer we got to home.  Mom started getting more worried.  She kept telling me to hurry, but I figured it's my walk and I will sniff and pee as much as I want.  We got pretty close to home and the alarm stopped.  Mom was relieved.  It turns out that it was the RV next to us. The guy told us that he doesn't know what happened.  He didn't even know he had an alarm.  He unhooked the battery to make it stop.  He said he woke up the whole neighborhood.  I am glad it wasn't ours.

Joey,
The Greyhound Who Conquered The Hill