Friday, December 20, 2013

Our Year In Review - Part 2

June found us in Fort Lauderdale, FL.   We stayed in a RV resort that was basically vacant.  It didn't look vacant as there were many mobile homes there.  It was eerie because the place seemed to be frozen in time.  There were bicycles on front porches, but most of the windows were boarded up just in case a hurricane came while the owners were away.  We actually got scared when we saw a man walking through the resort one day.  There were so any stray cats there.  Mama got scared a few times when putting trash into the dumpsters because cats would come flying out at her.  I enjoyed the cats, but Mama was not as happy with them.

Our site in Fort Lauderdale,
It was hot there. The evenings were nicer than the mornings. We enjoyed walking in the rain here.

Some of the vacant homes in the campground.
We were told that this place is "wild" from November through April. It fills up with French Canadians. We can only imagine how active it must be right now.
Mama declared this place to have great burgers and the best fried pickles.  Unfortunately, there are only locations in Florida. 

The beaches are beautiful, but very crowded.
In July, we drove back to the St. Louis area for two weeks to visit family, doctors and to have some work done on our motor home. We stayed at Bennett Springs for a few days where Dad enjoyed trout fishing.

At the end of July, we headed to Memphis for two weeks.  The first week, we stayed at the Graceland RV Resort.  Mama and I really enjoyed staying there.  Scout said it was too hot.  Mama and I walked to the Graceland gates a few times and also to the Graceland shopping area.  It was fun!

Visiting the shopping area of Graceland.

Me in front of the Graceland gates.

Standing on Hound Dog Way
The folks have friends, Lee and Donna, that live in Memphis, so they got to meet us. We enjoyed meeting them. 

We moved to West Memphis, AR for our second week of our stay in the Memphis area.  We stayed at a campground that was right on the river.  We watched the barge traffic.



The sky was pretty here.
We came across this while hiking in the woods.  BOL!
We will conclude our review on another day as we can see a few of you are dosing off.  BOL!

Joey,
The Greyhound Who Is Trying Decide What Location He Enjoyed The Most

Thursday, December 19, 2013

Our Year In Review - Part 1

We were listening to Christmas music the other day and Mama started talking about the places we have visited this year.  It seems like each place has touched us in some way either with the people we have met or just the places we have visited. We decided to do a brief year in review.

 We ended 2012 and started 2013 right here in Houston in this same campground.  While we were here, we sold our house and purchased our motor home.  We officially became full-timers and, yes, Texans!  When we arrived back here this month, we walked the campground to see who was still here that we knew from our previous visit.  We were really hoping to find the nice couple who brought Mama a Subway sandwich for lunch one day.  They noticed that she was alone during the day and thought she might like a sandwich.  Mama asked if they would be back this year and the lady said she didn't know.  She said they were getting older and she was not sure if they would make the trip again. They had been doing it for a few years.  Unfortunately, they are not here and we hope they are okay.   There was also a couple with a German Shepherd that we hoped to see again.  He was working really hard to train his dog and we would see him running with the German Shepherd a lot.  He is from Canada and we were told they went back home, but they will be returning.  They are not here yet.  Sadly, we have learned of a few people who have died.  We are located near the medical center and there are many patients that stay here while receiving treatment.  Do you remember the Weimaraner who used to use the dash of his motor home as a bed?  Well, his Dad got sick and died.  :-(  The Weimaraner is now living with his family in Florida.  We hope he has a nice yard there.


Us in the dog area in our park.

Our old place.
We left Houston and arrived in Denver on April 1st.  Denver is where the nice lady gave us bags of groceries as she was leaving the campground.  She said they stay in Vail, CO each year during the winter, so they are probably there now.  Denver is also where I made my "great escape" during blizzard conditions.  Yeah, we probably shouldn't talk about that too much.  Denver was not Mama's favorite place. We received 22" of snow in three weeks.  We had to keep the slides in quite a bit and it was cold.  It was there that Mama decided she was not good at winter camping.

Scout enjoyed laying on the beach at the lake in Denver.


Lookout Mountain

The log cabin which we walked to almost every day.

May found us heading to Dallas which was our next destination, but we stopped in Amarillo for a few days first.  We had a lot of fun there even though it was really windy.  We had a site where we had our own dog run.  We also went to Cadillac Ranch and did some painting.




The folks visited the RV museum.  This bus was in the movie RV.


They ate at the Big Texan Restaurant and really enjoyed it.

 Out next stop was Arlington which is near Dallas.  We met Miss Woe there.  Miss Woe is a greyhound that lives in the RV park with her folks.  We were really thinking of her when they had that ice storm recently. The campground posted photos of the ice storm and we were very thankful that we were not there.
Our site in Arlington.
I really liked this campground because of all the squirrels.  We sat outside a lot there.  We had a pretty good size yard.

Memorial Day 2013

The folks visited the Sixth Floor Museum which is also known as the Book Depository.  That is where Lee Harvey Oswald fired the shoots that killed President Kennedy.  Mama said she learned a lot.

Since we are only to the end of May, we will continue this on another day so that no one falls asleep on us.  BOL!

Joey,
The Greyhound Who Is Really Lucky To Have The Entire Country As His Backyard

Wednesday, December 18, 2013

Monday, December 16, 2013

We Did Good!

Emily from Sometimes I Wonder, Sometimes I Wander.... visited us today.  Mama told us to be on our best behavior because Miss Emily is thinking of adopting a greyhound.  We wanted to leave her with a good impression of our breed.  Do you know why it was really good that we were good?  She knows Santa!  Yep, he asked her to bring us some gifts.  Can you believe that?

We each got a Christmas tree that squeaks.

It's funny!

We also got Greenies and Fruitables.

We showed Miss Emily around our RV park.  She enjoyed walking us.  I was really good and didn't pull when she walked me. I kept checking to make sure that Mama was nearby though.  I am not used to anyone but Mama or Dad walking me.  Mama kept checking to see if I was really her boy.  BOL!

We sat outside for a while and Scout enjoyed having Miss Emily pet her.  Miss Emily didn't get tired of doing it like Mama does.

Scout is really tired. Yes, that is a bully stick. I demonstrated my chewing skills.  BOL!
After Miss Emily left, I really played with the toys.


Thanks for visiting us and tell Santa we said "thank you for the gifts"
 We enjoyed her visit and hope she finds a greyhound soon!

Joey,
The Greyhound Who Made His Mama Proud Today



Sunday, December 15, 2013

Cooking With A Ninja

Mama has been cooking with a Ninja.

Our Ninja
 A Ninja 3 In 1!  BOL!  

The first meal she prepared was a roast.  She browned it in the Ninja.


...and added some fresh mushrooms.
 She added a Campbell's Slow Cooker Sauce to it which she had not tried before. She thought the Tavern Roast Beef sounded really good.  Unfortuantely, she didn't really like the taste of it.  It wasn't Ninja's fault though.
The finished roast.
The next day, she decided to bake a chicken.  The recipe said to brown the chicken first in Ninja.

Yum, it looks pretty good like that.
The recipe then said to add chicken broth to the pan.  It was the first time Mama had used the Ninja to bake and didn't think about the chicken broth causing steam.  She then re-read the recipe and saw that this was a steam induced chicken.  It definitely steamed.  All our windows steamed up.  Mama was not totally pleased with the result of the chicken because she likes to eat the skin and the skin was no longer firm. The chicken was very moist though.  Scout and I gave it eight paws up!

The finished chicken is kind of wrinkled.
Today, Mama decided to fix baby back ribs.  She seasoned the ribs which were already cut up when she bought them.
Ribs being browned.
Mama then put the ribs on the baking rack and added beef broth.  Yes, this is once again the steam induced cooking.  They cooked for one hour and then Mama emptied the broth and baked them with BBQ sauce for 30 minutes.  The result was delicious!  Mama said they were some of the best ribs she has ever had.  We were not allowed to taste them.
BBQ Ribs
Mama is really liking the Ninja. The clean up is so much easier than using more than one pan.  The baking rack was a little messy today with the BBQ sauce, but it came clean with a SOS pad.

Tomorrow, we are going to have a visitor.  She is a follower of our blog.  We are supposed to be on our best behavior because she is interested in adopting a greyhound and we need to leave her with a good impression.  We were supposed to clean today, but decided we should enjoy the sunny weather.  We hope Miss Emily is not turned off by our home that is not as clean as it could be.

Joey,
The Greyhound Who Hopes His Sister Doesn't Embarrass Him Tomorrow...BOL!

Friday, December 13, 2013

Santa, We Are Ready!

We are ready for Santa to visit us.

It doesn't look like Christmas time outside though.  Just look at all those flowers.

Palm trees don't make you think it is Christmas time when you are pups from the Midwest.
  
Mud instead of snow?  Mama is not complaining.  Scout and I like snow though.

The recreation room is ready for Santa.
Are you ready to see our decorations?

Our tree has smaller lights this year and it looks cute.
 
We have our snowflake lights hung on the windshield.
  
The mirror behind the stove is decked out in lights.
 
We have two trees this year!

Gingerbread man and woman are in our kitchen window.
A few people have decorated their rigs. We will try and get photos at night.  We enjoy walking at night and seeing all the lights  It seemed like more people decorated last year.  We hope more people get into the spirit.

Joey,
The Greyhound Who Forgot To Make A List For Santa This Year

Home Again - Part 3

 Well, we just realized that we didn't finish telling you about the rest of our trip home.  I don't know if we even remember the res...