Dog Magnets

For those of you who follow this blog, you might recall our post about a dog visiting our campsite, now about two months ago.
He was a friendly dog, malnourished, though.  So we fed him cat food and water, and suddenly we had a pet dog. We named him Jet and got him vet checked.  Ultimately we had to find him a new owner as he wasn't friendly toward our Nevelle.  And our cat comes first.

Well, a couple of nights ago, two dogs traveling together decided to make our campsite their own!  These dogs were also happy tail-wagging pups, a male and female.  We couldn't get them to leave, so we gave them water as it was hot and they settled in under the trailer!  Nevelle wasn't too thrilled.

Both dogs were diagnosed by us as having mange.  The poor female's skin was in terrible shape.

We felt badly for them, and felt angry that people are ok with abandoning their unwanted pets in the forest.  How cruel.

So, they were with us 2 days, and yesterday as we broke down our forest campsite, we could see their confusion.  When we later pulled out with the trailer, they stood there watching.  Sad situation.

Odds & Ends

So, yes we are still camping in Texas, but we are departing by Monday, the 11th, heading north to Minnesota and hopefully cooler temperatures.

The days are hot, in the mid- to upper- nineties.  Humidity is up there too.  Very little rain lately.  However the sky is beautiful during the day and super starry at night!

We enjoy lots of butterflies and dragonflies here.  Here's a common buckeye butterfly and a dragonfly that is yet to be identified.

Michael continues to cook outdoors and right now is cooking a BBQ sauce that smells heavenly!  He made homemade granola the other day which tasted great and sliced up a watermelon we bought roadside from the back of a truck - sweet and juicy!

I recently had a new Native American style flute in the key of G crafted for me by a wonderful artist, George Dyson Jr.   It is aromatic cedar and Osage woods and has a gorgeous rich voice.

Nevelle is enjoying the forest and camper as much as we do.  He's an amazing camping and traveling cat! We couldn't be happier with our sweet boy!

One of the challenges of boondocking is not having hook-ups for water and electricity.  Our new rpod has a holding tank for 30 plus gallons of fresh water.  At a campground we can hook up to a water source with our hose and easily fill the tank, but here in the national forest there isn't a water supply.   Well, my brilliant husband remembered how to siphon water from his youth, and that's just what we do to replenish our fresh water supply.

We fill 3 or 4 of our 3.5 gallon waterbricks in town and then hoist them up onto the car roof when we get back to camp.  Then with a hose that Michael fixed up with 2 valves, we get the water flowing from the waterbricks, through the hose, and right into the tank!

We hung a hummingbird feeder with nectar and have had our first visitors!  There are at least 2 hummers and in the photo below, one is to the right of the feeder.

Here is a hummer perched in a tree.

On our day trips we see tons of ranches.  We have seen some longhorns, but I have yet to photograph one.  Here's a cow of a different sort.

Happy July to you!  Will keep you posted on our upcoming travel plans!

The Interior of Katie 2

I have had a request to post pics of the inside of our new Rpod.  Here are several!

Entrance & kitchen.  Two burner propane stove.

Kitchen

Kitchen with 'fridge & microwave/ convection oven

Dinette area & couch.

Bed to the rear of photo.

Bed and tiny bathroom to right of photo.

A lot of space compared to the teardrop!  So far we are beyond happy with everything!

Thanks for coming on the tour!

So Much Going On!

You can tell by the masthead, we are on a new adventure!  We have moved up to a 20' R-pod travel trailer from our 10' tiny teardrop.  Living large(er)!!

We sold our teardrop to a terrific family in Austin, TX and bought our gently used R-pod in nearby Lampasas from Mike and Erin.

It was bittersweet giving up the teardrop,  but we are incredibly happy with our decision to go larger.  There's something to be said for standing up when you get dressed!

We left Camp-Inn after having some maintenance done on her, and we also replaced her tires.  After one lovely couple looked at the trailer, but decided not to buy, we found our second family did wish to buy.  So from Wisconsin to Texas we drove, going through Illinois, Missouri, and Arkansas.

The Little Crane

Our favorite WI restaurant!

We drove off the interstate frequently and saw farms of soy and wheat and corn, along with horse and cattle farms.  Lots of beautiful scenery!

Here at Sam Houston National Forest again for boondocking, while waiting to register our new trailer, which we are calling  

 Katie 2.

Nevelle!

Sam Houston, forest namesake

Soon we will head north to escape the heat and humidity!

Texas to Wisconsin

Greetings from Necedah, Wisconsin!  Necedah is the home of Camp-Inn Teardrop Travel Trailers, maker of our fine "Katie".  After camping in Texas, in the national forest and at Escapees, for two months, we needed to move on!  Being too static makes us to complacent.  And even though there were things to do, medical and otherwise, we definitely felt it was time to be on the road again.

We left Texas on Friday morning, and for three days drove 400 hours per day to arrive in Necedah this past Sunday night.  The ride was surprisingly smooth and thankfully uneventful, so we actually enjoyed ourselves.  Nevelle is still a champ in the car!  He tolerates traveling very well, although he'd rather just be hanging outdoors!  We stop every 90 minutes to stretch and walk him on his leash, and this seems to keep all three of us healthy!

We had two things motivating us to head to Necedah.  The rather significant motivator is that we are looking to sell Katie, and step up to a larger travel trailer.  After this first spectacular year on the road traveling, and since adopting Nevelle, we came to the realization that the teardrop is just too small.  Being full-timers, the smallness of the space is really noticeable.  If we were traveling on periodic small outings, we would definitely stay with the teardrop.  Overall, she is very comfortable for sleeping and is so easy to tow.  But, dressing is like doing yoga, and having the cat, cat bed, and litter box in such a small space, well, we felt a larger trailer would be a great change for us.  This is done, certainly, with mixed feelings,but it feels right.

Our search for a larger, but cool trailer, took us to a manufacturer named Forest River, and a model called rpod!  The particular model, the 179, that we want in 20' long, double the length of Katie.  Happily we found a seller in central Texas selling a 2016 model 179.  He explained that he and his wife retired last fall and bought the trailer, intending to spend a lot of time camping.  Well, after three camping trips, they decided they don't like camping, so they put the trailer on the market.  So, Katie is listed for sale via several outlets, and the seller will hold the trailer until July 1, giving us time to sell the teardrop.

The rpod has a queen bed, a dining area, a small bathroom, and a decent sized kitchen area, all in a neat little package.  We had a chance the other day to see a 179, along with a couple of other models, and we are very excited about our choice!

Now to sell our teardrop.  If you or anyone you now is interested, please let me know!

While in Necedah, we celebrated my birthday yesterday by eating at a terrific restaurant called the Little Crane.  Today, Friday, the 27th, we went birding at the Necedah WildlifeSanctuary.  What a beautiful place!  It is an important stopover for migrating Sandhill cranes, and has hosted a pair of whooping cranes for 18 years that have produced a chick each year.  One success story for this endangered species.

We saw many species of birds, including young bald eagles in the nest, Sandhill crane, a good number of warblers, and American kestrel.  It is a lovely sanctuary, and made me miss my days at the Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary on Cape Cod, in Massachusetts.  Places of beauty and peace...very special!

Miscellaneous Stuff!

A quick list of recently seen and heard birds during our last days of the forest:

Indigo bunting has been back.  And a thrill was to see a rose-breasted grosbeak!

On a hike to a pretty little creek called Clear Creek, we had some nice birds: scarlet tanager, yellow-billed cuckoo, eastern bluebirds, great-crested flycatcher, yellow warbler, eastern wood peewee, wood thrush, and a bird whose song we hear all the time, and we cannot ID it!  Frustrating!

Right at our campsite, Michael found blackberries and we enjoyed their sweet and sour taste!

There were some pretty warm days here and often in the mid-eighties.  The ambient temp itself wasn't  so bad, but in the sun, it was pretty toasty.  Sitting in the surrounding forest kept us cool and comfy in the shade!

Michael decided to build a stool out of pine wood he found and sawed to size.  He drafts plans on paper first, accounting for the smallest details.  Here it is as a work in progress.

It is hard to believe that we have been here in Sam Houston National Forest for close to two months!  It has been a very relaxing change from all of the driving, but it is time to move on.  Our plan is to move on to the Escapees RV campground.  We arrived on Monday, May 2.   Hallejulah...there are showers here!  Plus we can do laundry, and at an electric site we can better charge the trailer.  Solar has kept our volt meter reading around 12.4, but the refrigerator won't go on.  This voltage reading is typically adequate for the 'fridge to run, so we don't know if there is a bigger issue at hand.  The operations manual does suggest that the refrigerator won't run if the ambient temperature is 90 degrees Fahrenheit.  Even though thermometer readings are in the mid- to high eighties, in the galley it feels warmer.

Beautiful new flowers are blooming around us.

A dragonfly hitched a ride on the car.  A big beauty, but the details are a bit fuzzy:

The reason for hanging around the Livingston area for so long was due to that episode with my chest pains back in March.  Since then I underwent a stress test and heart cathaterization and thankfully all is well and my heart is healthy.  The doctor feels it may be my esophagus so he recommends I visit a gastroenterologist.  The medical carousel goes round and round.  So my appointment is June 14.  Our plan is to stay in Texas, but to tour and camp around the state.

It has been frustrating at times to be so stationary, but these medical or other issues will come up as we haven't totally escaped from real life.  Our plan is to leave Escapees tomorrow for another local campsite called Stubblefield as I have a wrap up appointment with the cardiologist on the 17th.  We will then head south to High Island and Galveston, and maybe South Padre Island.