Maryland - Days 20 - 25

Cherry Hill Park
Wednesday, 20 - Monday, 25 February 2019

Crazy to spend so much of a short month sitting in the campground, but that's basically what's happened.  Though I do have a couple of good excuses.

Wednesday, it started snowing by 7 AM, I measured 4" on the picnic table at noon, and it kept snowing for more than an hour longer.  The weather folks claimed the snow would be immediately followed by lots of rain, but they lied.  We got zero rain.  So instead of the snow melting fairly quickly, it was still there when I woke up Thursday morning.

Both dogs, but especially Dexter, love the snow.  Dext acts like he does at the beach and wants to run in it.  I'm so glad to see him happy I try to run behind him, though it's not so easy in rubber boots with about 25 pounds overweight on me.  But they love it, so I'm glad for them that it stuck around all day and overnight.

On Friday, I ventured out to pay my phone bill and get a few groceries, but I wasn't sure enough of the roads because there was ice here and there, so went straight on back.

We got a new next-door neighbor on Friday, and after they'd been here a little bit, Dexter started growling in their direction.  At first I figured they were outside doing something on our side of their RV, or that they were walking their dog or something.  But when the growling kept up, I looked and couldn't see any of that.  It wasn't until I followed the direction of his eyes that I noticed the satellite dish on their roof was moving around to pick up a signal.  And that's what Dext was growling at.  (The first thing I said was, "You're kidding.")  Then I saw the man come out and take a look, so I got out and told him about Dexter growling at the dish and the man said, "You're kidding."  Dexter's clearly very observant.

These people don't have a dog but do have a bird - I forget which kind the man said.  When they left Saturday morning I found a pile of sunflower seeds on my picnic table.  I left them there for the birds in the park.  But 2 days later, the pile looked untouched.  Then on Monday I noticed that there was nary a seed left and figured the squirrels had come while we were out.  The people behind us are long-term folks and have a bird feeder they fill every day.  They were getting a big flock of sparrow-size birds with a few squirrels gathering on the ground to pick up the leavings every day.  But recently a flock of crows has moved in and, I guess, muscled out the smaller birds.  It's a big batch of crows - maybe 3+ dozen.

The rain did show up on Sunday and came down heavy for hours in the morning.  The afternoon was wonderful with so much warm sun that I put on a t-shirt and flip-flops for a while.  But about 5:00 heavy wind gusts started up and kept blowing all night.  Heavy as in the wind was blowing the RV around quite a bit.

I'd intended to go see a bit more of the state Monday, but by the early morning weather broadcast, the National Weather Service had issued some serious wind warnings, bridges were being closed to trucks, and warnings were out for vehicles with high profiles (meaning RVs, I figured).  But all the weather's supposed to calm down and be nice for most of the rest of the week, so I should be able to get out a little more.

Meanwhile, I spent a day putting together my tax return.  I don't have a printer so handwrote the 1040 on notebook paper.  I did that once before and the IRS didn't say anything about it, so I'm hoping it'll work again.

I spent some more hours making reservations for our first few days in Virginia, because I need a mailing address there.  I've managed to move far enough south so that vets' offices have at least heard of Trifexis (heartworm and flea medicine), which is what I was giving the dogs until I ran out.  I got a year's supply from my vet before I left Austin, but with that gone now I need more.  I don't like ordering things by mail but kept running into so many roadblocks that I finally went for it - though I called and did it over the phone, rather than online, which I don't trust. 

The Banfield in Delaware did a heartworm test on the dogs, so I don't have to get that done again, but state laws in Virginia say one vet can't use the heartworm test done by another vet - even one Banfield using the test another one did - so if I didn't order by mail, I'd have to go back to Delaware (and I've already discussed the bridge problem I have).  But this way, the online company would fax a release to Delaware, who told me they'd sign it and send it back, and the online company would then send the pills to KOA in Virginia.  Which was the main reason I wanted to make reservations now.   Hope this all works - the Delaware Banfield sounded really disorganized on the phone.

No deer at this campground - way too open a space and sandwiched between an interstate and a very busy road - but it seems to be packed with rabbits.  We don't usually see them in the daytime, though Dexter looks for them every time we go out, but they're busy at night.  Our early morning walks are a series of struggles because the rabbits get both dogs excited.  There was one time, though, we walked right by 2 rabbits - and I know Dexter saw them, he looked straight at them twice - but both rabbits froze and I guess Dext decided they were not real, like the stone turtles that are all over the campground.  And Gracie didn't notice them at all.  I thought that was interesting.