Travels with Millie

Millie just after we left home on October 19th.

Back 14 years ago as we contemplated getting a dog for our young daughter, we discussed the likelihood that the dog would be part of our household long after our nest was empty. So here we are -- nest is empty, husband newly retired and our 14 year old "pound puppy" has been on the road with us since October 19th. During most of her life, Millie has enjoyed time at her favorite kennel whenever we have been off on vacation. The "doggie hotel" was her happy home away from home. This time the journey was going to last too long to leave her behind and pay for care. Millie has always been a very active dog and noise and people excited her quite a bit, car rides and travel were over-stimulating. Over the past year she has become completely deaf and I think she enjoys the peace & quiet. Deafness has made her life much calmer. 

For the most part Millie has been an easy travel companion. At her age she is pretty content to sleep most of the day and walks do not need to be long to provide enough exercise. 

Millie's seat in the pick-up. The "S-biner" clip upper
 left has been handy for hooking leash
while not in use on the road.

We have a board covered in carpet the width and depth of the backseat of our crew cab pickup truck. Her bed rides on the board and she even sleeps and waits contentedly in the cab when we make short stops. For longer stops we leave her in the camper. Her bed is in the cozy space under our table. Along about Sedona she discovered there was a nice view of the outside world if she climbed up on top of the table. We came back from one bike ride to find her sleeping up there! We cured that issue by pulling the blinds when we left her. So a couple weeks ago she came up with a bigger stunt! While at Organ Pipe Cactus Nat'l Monument we thought it would be a nice evening to grill a couple pork chops. I was thawing them in the sink on the freezer paper they had been wrapped in. There must have been an inch of that paper just within a standing Millie's reach, because when we returned from a little hike there was no pork chops, no freezer paper, and no plastic wrap that had been between the chops. She didn't even ask for her next two meals. Talk about being in the dog house. 

Millie's goblin dog.

In an early post I shared Millie's adventure at Goblin Valley with her very own dog goblin that got her all excited. She met a barrel cactus in the desert which prompted a similar reaction... for some reason an 18" spikey ball inspired fear and anger.

Fresh out of the doggie beauty salon.

The state park we stayed at in Tucson was conveniently located near a large mall. Millie had a trip to the Petco store for a bath & brush.  Millie never enjoys being bathed but it seemed necessary as we would have a passenger for the trip from Tucson, plus meeting the relatives for the holiday. The groomer was somewhat unhappy with me that I had failed to warn her that Millie had had a skunk encounter in recent months. Apparently the odor was very strong once she was wet. The skunk spray happened in our yard at home in September at five in the morning. Pets do keep life interesting!

We came to Dan's mother's in Lake Havasu for Thanksgiving. His sister and his niece were here with family and family dog. Naloo is a young beautiful chocolate lab. The two dogs circled each other the first evening but then settled in to tolerating each other just fine.

Millie & Naloo, Millie's head at beginning of tilt.

Both were eternally optimistic with all of the yummy food smells of the Thanksgiving feast. Naloo and family headed home to California in the evening of Thanksgiving day. By that time we had noticed Millie walking funny. She seemed to be staggering some and her head was tilted. She got much worse overnight and I was sure by morning we were going to have to find a vet to put her down. I had no idea how much this dog means to me. I couldn't stop crying and yet I knew we would not and could not spend any crazy amounts of money on veterinary care. 

Millie is not a cuddly dog but she stayed close to me all night and through the morning. We called my daughter so she could tell Millie goodbye on the phone. At 11 we took Millie to a vet recommended by a close friend of Mom's. It turns out there is a common canine thing called Peripheral Vestibular Syndrome. Basically she was feeling like she was whirling on a very fast merry-go-round that would not stop. 

The good news is almost all dogs recover from it in a few days. Millie's case was severe enough that they kept her at the animal hospital to a couple nights. By Sunday morning they were ready to send her home. 

Recuperating on back patio with the grandma.

She was still very unsteady and they said the head tilt may last several weeks. When she had been home for over 24 hours and not eaten I was getting worried, they had told me she was eating "like a pig" at the hospital. It turns out they were feeding her canned food which we could come buy from them or they suggested I cook chicken, rice and possibly eggs for her. Yep, that worked she does eat that stuff (like a pig!). 

Here is the old girl today. She seems to be doing pretty good.

We extended our stay at Mom's a few days but we will be heading north on tomorrow morning. Being liftied up and down to truck and camper may not be very comfortable, I think Millie's world is still spinning some. Hopefully she will continue to improve. I will finish this post with a few other random Millie pics from our journey. 

jean

Millie & me at Goblin Valley

At a desert lunch stop near Quartzite

Afternoon nap time.

Lazy Blogger checking in...

Organ Pipe Cactus Nat'l Monument

I am afraid I got very lazy about this blog a few weeks ago. 

We came to visit Dan’s mom in Lake Havasu Arizona in mid November. We left for a week and returned with a friend who is a college student in Tucson who joined us for Thanksgiving. 

New Leveler

Old leveling tools

During our first visit to Lake Havasu we used our time to make a few upgrades to our home on wheels. At an RV supply store we bought some handy levelers to drive onto when a camp sight is not perfectly level. For the first nine years we have used a combination of plywood, 2 x  6’s and 4 x 6’s to drive onto to get the camper level. While back on the road we used them several times, they work great.

Old faucet

New faucet

Our next upgrade was to replace the faucet in the kitchen. The original faucet was very low profile so it was difficult to fill any tall container, even the tea kettle. The new one came with a spray nozzle which was not necessarily something we wanted but there were not too many viable (inexpensive) options at Lowe’s in Lake Havasu. We had to drill a couple new holes in the countertop. We found the right tools at grandma’s house and the project was done in no time. One morning we were getting ready to empty tanks and refill water and as there was plenty of extra hot water I indulged in shampooing my hair under the new faucet. It also worked great.

Cozy new sheets.

We have never been fans of flannel sheets but as the nights were getting cooler and cooler on the trip we decided to make that change in Havasu also. On a shopping trip to JC Pennys with Mom she treated us to some pretty new sheets. 

We also purchased a new portable vacuum. With a dog in the camper with the two of us the hair needs cleaning up often. The old Dirt Devil we had was not getting the job done. A dollar’s worth of vacuuming at a car wash in Moab worked great, but those are not always there when you need them.

New power cord from truck to back.

The last new gizmo was a power adapter that will charge two USB cords at once plus a cord that will reach through the back window of the truck and into the camper. Useful for charging the phone without going back & forth to the truck cab. 

Back Patio at Mom's...Looks rough, huh?

It was so perfectly pleasant and warm in Lake Havasu I was not sure I would like being back on the road. I got quite a bit of hand quilting done while we were there. We also played many games of three handed pinochle. Of the games we kept track of Dan won 3 and Mom & I each won two. She does pretty good for an 87 year old! 

After leaving Lake Havasu we spent a free night on BLM land south of Quartzite and had a night near some petroglyphs west of Gila Bend, at a BLM campground. While there I attempted to find a geocache but failed, oh well. I did see some petroglyphs not in the park sight. We visited with a couple there who are from Jacksonville Oregon. They travel in a truck & camper just a bit larger than ours and have even been campground hosts. On their recommendation we decided to go to Organ Pipe Cactus Nat’l Monument. It is a beautiful park! The staff were super friendly. They have a “Desert Ranger” program for the not so junior ranger wannabes. I had a booklet of activities to do and I earned a colorful badge after taking the Desert Ranger Pledge. 

Christate on and Organ Pipe Cactus.It is an unusual growth happens in 1 in 200,000 Cactus. 

We were unable to communicate with the outside world while we were in the Organ Pipe Cactus Monument because even though we had cell signal apparently AT&T thought we were in Mexico! We both received text messages warning us that international charges would apply to all phone use. We were actually about 5 miles inside Arizona. Go figure!!

We spent two nights at Catalina State Park on the north side of Tuscan. We made brief visits to both the east and west sections of the Saguaro Nat’l Park. We also did a little more of that rocky bike riding. It was quite disconcerting going down rocky trails with huge cactus close on both sides of the trail! 

Biking in Tucson

We came back to Lake Havasu the day before Thanksgiving. I will write more about that time later. We spent some good times with family and had some trauma time with Millie.

Bye for now   jean

News from Sedona

Roadside snow south of Flagstaff, AZ

We drove through some very snowy country to get here on Monday and we are here for our third night. The first two nights we stayed at a quiet campground on Wet Beaver Creek. Yes, there is a Dry Beaver Creek a few miles away AND Wet Beaver Creek did have flowing water. After the weather last week things are quite moist everywhere in the area. Tonight and tomorrow night we are staying at a private RV park right in town. The park name is Rancho Sedona. Hot showers in the morning;o)

Bike ride near Courthouse Rock

We have ridden our bikes about 10 miles both yesterday and today. More of those bumpy rocks I love. I even managed to ride without falling off. Today we rode to the Palatki Cultural Site. We got there just before closing and just in time to see and learn about some pictographs but not in time to go to the cliff dwellings.

Unusual black pictographs at Palatki

We have found the little indoor/outdoor thermometer we have to be very useful on the trip. We have the outdoor part mounted on the camper between the camper and the back of the truck cab. and we have a place on the inside of the camper for the indoor part as well as a place in the cab of the truck. We used sticky back velcro to hold the parts in place. Our other cars have the outdoor temp displayed in the dash but our truck does not have that feature. It seems like a silly little thing but we seem to like to know just how cold (or hot) it is.

Eventually the stars and circles will be connected by neutral shaded hexagons

I have finished a second hexagon star. I only work on them while we are driving. I tell my daughter I will probably not have this quilt finished until her daughter (or son) is ready to get married... in other words not for a very long time. 

Dan & I play games most evenings. We take turns choosing the games. So far “Five Crowns” is our favorite. Next best is the card game “oh Fritz”. “oh Fritz” is a game we learned from friends of my brother last summer. I believe they invented it. Here is how to play:

Deal 6 cards each. Leave cards face down. Each player arranges their cards in two rows of three. You look at the three cards closest to you and try to remember them. It is allowed to arrange these cards in any order. The undealt cards are the stock pile and the top card is turned up to begin the discard pile. The goal is to get your six cards to total the least. Fives and Kings are special... fives are negative 5 and kings are zero. Other face cards are 10 and the rest count the number on them (aces one). The numbered cards zero each other out if they are pairs or triples. During each turn the player takes either the top card from the discard pile or draw the top card from the stock. The drawn card may replace any one of the player’s face down cards and placed face up OR just discarded and one card turned face up. EACH TURN ONE CARD IS TURNED FACE UP. During each hand each player gets exactly 6 turns, at which time all cards are face up. Each player’s cards are added up and scores recorded. Examples: 6,6,5,K,8, 4 would make a score of 7; A, A,K,5,Q,A would make 5; J,5,5,J,3,A would score -6. A game consists of ten hands and the player with the lowest score wins. It is a fun game, a good mixture of luck and skill. If you try it with my directions and it doesn’t work let me know where I went wrong and I will try to clarify. Attempting to write game directions is a good challenge. 

Good night from Sedona, greetings to all.  

jean

The Raven, the Burger & the Ride

Greetings from Utah, but we are almost to Arizona.... 

We arrived at Gouldings Campground at Monument Valley about 4:30 and are spending the big bucks for hookups, showers, wifi, etc. Up to & including tonight our average cost per night is $11.06. We will visit the Navajo Tribal Visitor Center tomorrow and look into a tour -vs- us driving ourselves through Monument Valley.

 I don’t want this to be too much blah blah blah about where we went and what we saw. Never the less, we are seeing some beautiful scenery. And Delicate Arch at Arches NP was truly a WOW experience.

The Ravens: We were told by our Fiery Furnace Ranger at Arches that Ravens are extremely intelligent birds. They rank up there with dolphins and golden retrievers in the brains department. They can imitate many sounds and are very clever at opening things. When we pulled into our campsite at Dead Horse State Park I thought I heard a frog across the road and followed the sound to see what I would find And there was a raven making croaking sounds! At the Needles area of Canyonlands they had signs posted to keep all food containers in locked cars because the ravens can open many boxes and zippers such as on coolers. They stated further that you can get a citation if you fail to keep your food secure from the birds. So our raven encounter came when we went for a 2.4 mile hike this morning at the Needles area of Canyonlands. When we parked the camper we noticed a couple birds flying right over to us kind of like begging chipmunks. We did not think too much about it at the time then when we returned from out hike there was a raven up on the camper roof and he seemed to be picking at something. Dan climbed up to chase him away (he ignored my clapping) and we found he had removed all of the caulking around the running lights near the camper top!

The Burger: Moab, Utah seems like a cool little town. Mountain bike shops on every other corner and all kinds of “happenings” going on. Folk Festival and marathon this past few days. They have a funky volunteer run radio station and instead of a Goodwill store they have WabiSabi. When you make a purchase you get to vote for which local nonprofit organization you want them to support. Across the street from WabiSabi is Milt’s Stop & Eat. We were past there on a Sunday afternoon and the parking lot was packed. Almost a week later we were back in town and Dan offered to buy me my first meal out since we left home... I knew just where I wanted to go and we were not disappointed! Milt’s is local owned. They use local fresh ingredients; we shared a burger, fries and a chocolate shake. MMMM Good! in fact it was so good we went back the next day when we passed back through town.

The Ride: I am no dare devil and I am too old to do too many new crazy things but riding just little bit of slick rock trails is really really fun, We rode the Great Pyramid trail at Dead Horse Point State Park. It was only 4.2 miles and only rated Easy-Moderate, but it was enough thrill and fun for me. I spilled once and had to walk a few places. It was as exciting was skiing but with rocks & trees as obstacles instead of snow. Very fun. 

The weather has turned very wintery so we are going to keep moving south looking for some warmer temperatures and who knows what adventures.

that's all for now... jean

Just a quick note

We are down from Arches spent two nights there. The second night quite a storm brewed in just about sunset time. The wind whipped through our hilltop campsite. We saw a bit of lightning over towards Delicate Arch where we had hiked a few hours earlier. We spent last night along the Colorado River just north of Moab. After a little restocking we are heading to Dead Horse Point and Canyonlands for a day or two.
I will try to upload another pic or two before Dan drives me out of town...

Delicate Arch

Well that's all for now...

greetings from the wilds of Utah!

jean