Sunday, 17 through Monday, 25 January 2021
Life in the campground
Weather
During this period we had a fair amount of sun, but we also had some very heavy rains now and then. Considering the drought this area's been in for a long time, it was surprising for us to have so much precipitation during this time.
I've been noticing, when I take the dogs out for their early walks, that it's rarely truly dark in the campground, thanks to the lights from the combined Dallas/Ft. Worth metropolitan area. It hasn't caused me trouble sleeping, because our particular campsite is heavily shaded by trees, but as soon as we get out on the road to walk, we all notice that we can notice things.
This was really apparent because on several mornings toward the end of our stay we had heavy fog, with the morning TV weather report saying visibility was down to just a few miles in this area. That fog stopped most of the light from coming in, so walking here became more like our experience in more remote campgrounds.
People
The campground was completely full on Saturday night, and scarcely less so on Sunday night. After the 3-day holiday weekend, things went back to normal, with a fair number of campers on weekends and almost none on weekdays.
One group, at the end of the section of park where we were, seemed to be making theirs a long-term stay. They came in right about the time I first did and, except for one night when they were gone, they've been there ever since. I noticed them particularly because they were in tents. Their group started out with 1 car, 2 tents, 3 people and a dog. In the time I stayed here, they never had more than just this 1 car, but the number of tents increased to 4. One morning I saw one of those folks climbing into the dumpster, apparently trying to retrieve something. He was so intent on what he was doing that he didn't notice us walking down the road beside him, and I decided to keep quiet. But it looked odd, and I really did wonder what was worth the price he was paying.
One of the reasons I like staying in this campground is that, even last summer, the loop right behind our site isn't being rented out. That's 21 campsites that don't even appear on the online computer program. So the dogs and I have an automatic free area to walk in where most other people don't go and where there are rarely other dogs. And we can get there by walking from our space directly into the space behind us, so we don't have to go out on the road and pass the campsites across from us, which have occasionally had dogs in them.
But while we were there this time, a couple with Washington state license plates set up in that section, and when I told them I didn't think they were renting those sites explained they're the new camp hosts. Seemed an odd time of year to have camp hosts, which are usually needed for the heavy outdoor months of April to October. They said they'd previously spent 2 years camp-hosting at Mt. Rainier National Park, and were glad to be in a less rainy climate.
But it turned out to not just be those folks. A few days later, another camper (I only saw a single woman and her dog) moved in next door to them, put covers over her tires, set out house plants, and gave indications of planning to stay. So I guessed she was a co-camp host and really started wondering why they'd moved in so much before they were needed. And typically camp hosts have a sign in front of their campsites so people know who to ask questions of, which neither of these folks had. Odd but hey, so what.
Except night after night I saw people camped in sites along that row. None of them ever stayed longer than 1 night, but I just couldn't figure out how they were getting those sites. The first time I noticed anybody there was the Saturday the campground was so full, and I figured the rangers at the front gate must have given out these sites to the overflow crowd. But it continued even on nights when the campground was nearly empty, so that didn't make any sense. Even now those sites don't appear on the on-line reservation page, so I just don't understand what was up. (We all need a little mystery in our lives.)
Wildlife
You'd think it was spring, the way the birds were carrying on with their songs. I really enjoyed listening to them, though I couldn't identify any of them by their songs except chickadees (of course). And I can't seem to recognize Cardinal songs, but there were certainly a lot of them in the campground. Occasionally, a male would perch in the shrubbery near my window, and Lily would make predatory noises while I watched the bird in awe of its beauty.
I saw a roadrunner once, and was really glad because I'd seen one a couple of times last summer but was afraid something had happened to it since I hadn't seen it this trip. But it's still there. Presumably there's more than one there, because only a few solitary species seem to be content with living alone.
Once, when the sun was shining, I saw a bird of such incredible blue I couldn't believe it was a regular Bluebird. This bird looked like an enameled jewel and was stunning. But an online search for blue birds in North America led me to the conclusion that it must have been a Bluebird. No other species that appears in this area is as seriously blue as they are.
We continued to hear the coyote chorus early in the mornings, and Dexter had a hard time keeping himself from joining in. And we started seeing lots of rabbits, which I figured explained the number of coyotes we heard.
Other circumstances
Early on a number of mornings, when we left the RV to walk we ran into a really ghastly smell that reminded me of a pulp mill. Our campsite is visibly close to the farm-to-market road that runs right next to us for the length of the park, and I figured there must be some kind of industry not far away that we could smell when the wind was just right. Of course, that industry would be keeping odd hours, given that we could smell it at 4:30 AM, though not generally after about 9:00 AM. I searched online for pulp mills in the area and came up empty, so I don't know what that smell was, besides bad.
One mid-morning I saw 3 police cars driving along the road in front of our space, coming from the interior of the campground. At other campgrounds when I've seen police, it's always been for a reason - usually the health of one of the campers. But I think this is the first time I've seen three of them, and I couldn't help but wonder. My next thought was to wonder if they were checking out the tent city folks down the road, but when we walked by later, nothing had changed. I never found anyone to ask, though, so I'll just have to keep wondering.
While we were here this time, I got 12 blog posts completed, and I made reservations - in a campground for me and at a boarding place for the dogs - for our upcoming trip to Austin for me to get that crown put on my root-canaled tooth.
Trips to town
We left the campground twice during this period and once when we were here earlier. Most trips were made to pick up groceries and refill the propane tank. Also to shake up the contents of my waste tanks so I could dump them when we got back to the campground and hope I was getting rid of most of the waste.
Once while I was out, I watched an accident right in front of me. It was a 3-way intersection, with everybody having a stop sign. The car coming from the street to my left moved out into the intersection when it was her turn, and I watched in complete disbelief when the car beside me, headed the way I was, pulled slowly out into the intersection while the other car was still in it - so thoroughly in it that he hit her right rear quarter. There was absolutely no excuse at all for what he did, and I was trying to figure out where I could park to let the woman know I could be a witness if she needed one, when I saw that the car behind me was a police car, and he had his flashing lights going before I could find a spot. I figured with him there, and with the cause of the accident so completely obvious he wouldn't mess it up, that I didn't need to stick around. I can still see it in my mind, happening in real life as slowly as a slow-motion film, and I still can't believe that driver was pulling right into the first driver.
One trip I drove over to Rockwall to Luxury Coach Services, to get them to show me why David and I hadn't been able to access the bulbs in my rear lights. My left-hand traveling light hadn't worked since I was in Kansas, I think it was. The guys there showed me that David and I had neglected to take out 2 screws that we thought had nothing to do with my problem but were actually the solution to it. So now I know. And despite 2 workers taking time to change that bulb and redo the sealant to keep out the water that they figured had caused the bulb to explode (which is why it didn't work) not only for the left side lights but for the right side as well - despite all that, the owner didn't charge me a dime. He said next time I brought the RV in he'd charge me an extra $100, though I knew he was kidding. Really nice of him. Great place to take an RV.
And since I was on the other side of Dallas County, I decided to stop at the recycling place in Richardson, which is the only place I know of in Texas that will take all my recycling, and also stop at my mail box. Dexter recognizes where he is when we get within a block of Anna and David's house and starts wriggling and is just generally not sure how to contain his excitement. My family's always really nice about letting me take the dogs inside for a few minutes and let them out into the back yard for a bit, and have a chance to explore the larger spaces inside and out that they don't get with RV life.
The trip out of the campground I made earlier this month was partly a calendar search. My wonderful credit union in Olympia, WA, always sends a wall calendar every year, and I've found them the perfect size for my life. But this year they sent a post card instead, saying with rising costs and lowered demand for them, they weren't sending out the calendars. I was crushed. I went to several stores in Cedar Hill, but my search was complicated by being much later than when most people shop for calendars, so the selection was limited. The only ones I found were the big fancy wall calendars that take up a lot more room than the smaller version I've been used to. But unlike most other people in this increasingly digital age, I needed that paper calendar, so I found the one with the least offensive photos I could and that's what I'll be using this year. With luck, it'll remind me to shop earlier next year, now that I know my credit union's out of the calendar business.
On Monday the 25th, the day before we were leaving this part of the state, I made one last run up to pick up mail and drop off recycling. This time, I also made a quick stop at my storage unit. I only had a pair of shoes to drop off, so it wasn't an important trip, but I wanted to take another look at the life I could have if I stopped traveling around. Sometimes I miss that life as much as my critters do. But I still have half the United States to see, and parts of it I've never seen, so I'm by no means ready to abandon this idea. Obviously I'm having to defer it, but I have to keep believing that things will get better. Soon.
Once when I was getting propane here in Cedar Hill, I discovered a sizeable pet cemetery. Even without exploring, I could see some of these grave markers go back to the early 1970s. The weather was raw and I didn't want to let the dogs out of the RV, so I just made this a quick trip.
 |
 |
Current events
Inauguration
As I'm sure many others did, I spent much of the morning watching the ceremony. And as I'm sure many others have, I had favorite moments.
One of them belonged to Sen. Roy Blunt, the senior senator from Missouri. He said that this presidential inauguration was both commonplace and miraculous: it's commonplace because we've done it every four years since 1789, and it's miraculous because we've done it every four years since 1789.
Another belonged to poet Amanda Gorman, whose poetry was stunning in its strength and imagery, and who said our country isn't broken, only unfinished.
Just typing the thoughts of those two now required a Kleenex, and I went through much of a box that morning.
I watched Pres. Trump's departure and listened to his last speech. And the thing that impressed me the most was that, until then, I'd never realized the strength of character I'd been watching in every previous 4 years when the outgoing president came to participate in the peaceful transfer of power from one administration to the next. I'd failed to appreciate how extremely difficult it was for some of them to be having to sit there (in lousy January weather) and be civil to someone they very often disagreed strongly with. I saw it for the first time now when our outgoing president chose to act like a petulant child instead of the adult this country needs so badly.
Trump's certainly not the first to be so badly disappointed: just in my lifetime I've watched Gerald Ford lose to Jimmy Carter, and watched Jimmy Carter lose to Ronald Reagan, and watched George Bush lose to Bill Clinton. All three of those folks badly wanted to continue in the job, all three seriously disagreed with their successors, yet all three gritted their teeth and went through the motions like grown-ups.
Speaking of which, I was interested to see that Rep. Jim Jordan and Sen. Ted Cruz both came to the inauguration, and that neither went to Trump's send-off at Andrews AFB. Although I couldn't bring myself to hope that either of them would eschew partisan posturing for the good of the county, at least they were there. And for any show of patriotism, in these post-Capitol-invasion days, I am truly grateful.
Other inspiring notes
I heard the Estonia foreign minister on the radio saying the democratic process is like a turtle - it moves slow but it's stable.
On the morning TV news I heard about Camille Richards, a 10-year-old girl who had been soliciting donations of winter coats for other children. She was including little hand-written cards in the pockets of the coats in hopes of helping the kids who would wear them.. One of the cards said, "Where you start out in life is not where you finish - you can do great things."
And on a slightly different tack, I heard that West Virginia's New River Gorge is now an official national park. I remember visiting there during my month in West Virginia - April of 2019. I remember the gorge very well, and the bridge over the gorge very well indeed. It's a beautiful area, and I hope the national park status serves them well.
No comments:
Post a Comment