Trip to the Casino..and other stuff

June 10 – I used to love Sundays, but this summer it will be my least favorite day of the week.  Bill cleaned one site and went to get a Sunday paper after we had a smaller than normal Sunday breakfast of melon, muffins, bacon and 2 poached eggs for Bill.  We took our time reading the paper and waiting for most of our sites to clear out before heading out to clean.  I vacuumed the RV and cleaned the bathroom really good.  Not my normal Sunday routine by far. 

We did 13 sites together, but luckily only one was really bad.  The idiots put cans and water bottles in the fire pit and there were cigarette butts all over and candy wrappers.  The scum that leaves their cigarette butts on the ground and let their dogs poop all over and don’t clean up after them are the ones I’d like to bar from the campgrounds.  Oh and then there are the ones who sneak in late and leave early without paying and the ones who don’t leash their dogs and when you say something to them it’s, “oh, the kids just let them out of the truck or I was just getting the leash.”  Well, one came after Xena when we did our loop walk tonight with her and it growled and I hollered for them to come for their dog and it moved towards poor old Xena and Bill went to grab Xena and fell and scraped up his arm.  The guy said his dog was non-violent and had just walked out the door, well, why was the door open and the dog not leashed?  I’m going to complain to the head ranger as I don’t think the rangers make the people leash or hook up their dogs.  I can become a real thorn in someone’s side!

Getting back to the rest of the day…it was a bit windy from the beginning and got worse as the day went on so it wasn’t the kind of day to go boating or sit outside like yesterday.  We had lunch after having a drink and rest from the site work, then I got showered as I had a meeting with the office manager at 4.  After I was all cleaned up I sat at the table and read and watched the hummingbirds.  Those poor little birds try to get that nectar with the wind blowing like crazy and the feeder just swinging.  At one point I did spot 4 today, 3 on the feeder and one hovering and waiting for a spot.

I didn’t realize my meeting was going to take 2 hours!  She went over all my duties and assigned me a money box and batch of day passes to issue.  Basically NO ONE gets in for free unless you live here and have a visitor or service company.  If you pay for a camp site you also pay for a day pass.  So they get you coming and going.  There are no discounts unless you are a Colorado resident, so no military or senior discount unless you live here.  We can earn an annual pass once we volunteer 48 hours to the park, so Bill will get his so if we go to visit other parks for the day we get in free and we can camp Sunday – Thursdays at a discount with it.  So we might get a little perk from it.  My supervisor is Susan and she’s been here 17 years and used to be a high school guidance counselor.  That was interesting since that was Bill’s career.

The late meeting changed our dinner plans.  I had thawed a pound of ground venison and chicken breasts but due to the wind I had decided before I left that I’d cook just the chicken inside and do the venison tomorrow.  Well since I was so late getting back I went with the venison and gave Bill a choice of tacos or sloppy joes and he had a time deciding but ended up picking tacos.  What a waste of prime venison.  It was good and he enjoyed it so that was fine.

We watched a new show on before taking our walk and facing the attack dog!  I cleaned up Bill’s elbow and we watched another new show.  This Mountain time zone is a bear for watching TV.  All the shows come on so early.  I meant to call my friend Jean and wish her a happy birthday, but the 2 hour time difference made it impossible by the time I remembered.  If you’re reading this, Happy Birthday Jean!

The boat down the road

There was a couple who rented a site for the day and brought their huge sailboat out of dry dock and worked on it in the site to prepare it to put in the lake next weekend.  Their site will only need to be raked out tomorrow.  Time to read a bit before retiring for the night!

 

June 11 – Not many sites to clean today so after a breakfast of cereal, Bill drove to the office to pick up reservations and then he dropped me off to rake 2 sites while he put the tickets in at each spot.  He had said his side was hurting so I felt bad to make him rake.  The 3^rd site had used the fire pit so I did the pit while he raked.  We hung out at the RV until lunch.  I watered my plants and sat out in a chair about 6 feet from the hummingbird feeder and took a gazillon pictures.  I tried different settings and my telephoto lens, they are just so fast and my camera only has a speed of 800, so maybe that’s part of the problem.

The unusual birdnest

After lunch we had the last 2 sites to do as they pushed leaving right up to the noon deadline.  Bill dropped me off at the one that used the firepit while he went and raked the easy one and came back and raked that one.  We noticed a plastic bag swiftly moving across the campground and we drove up close and I trotted after it and on the way back I noticed a bird nest on the ground at the first site I raked this morning.  It was where the sailboat was yesterday and I had told Bill it looked like someone broke some tiny bird eggs in the drive when I raked it.   Then it dawned on me that the people found the nest in the boat and the eggs got broken and they gently laid the nest by a big rock to be found, and I found it.  I am going to take it to the office as they are going to have some summer programs for kids and if one is on wildlife they might like seeing this very non-traditional looking nest.  Not a lot of twigs involved.  Then we spotted a huge black bird at the one remaining site that they people were staying another night.  We stopped so Bill could shoo it away, but then he called me to come and turn off the Mule.  That bird had destroyed their garbage bag and gotten into a crate with a loaf of bread in it and other stuff.   There where peanut shells all over and bits of plastic bag.  Yuck.  We did the best we could and took the trash to the dumpster and left the opened crate in their tent and restacked their belongings to keep the bird from getting into more.

Three hummingbirds at once

After a final sweep to pick up more trash that was caught by the wind, we showered and drove into Ignacio.  On the way we stopped at the post office as she told Bill she wanted to talk to me about my postcards.  I thought I was in trouble but she wanted to know about printing the photos right on photo paper that is 4 x 6 and just using them as post cards.  She didn’t know they made photo paper that size.  The new remote for the bedroom box came, hope it’s the right one, but the new card for the box wasn’t in the mail.  We stopped at Paco’s Glass and ordered a plain tempered glass pane tinted to change out the crackled one we have in our door now.  He said it should be here in about a week.  Then we stopped at the liquor store and grocery so I could get a new receipt for a $2 rebate on my bottle of Chocovine and some produce we needed.  Down the block is the library and we had been told we could get a library card, so Bill got one and we checked out 4 books and they had some overstock for sale so I bought 4 hardbacks for $2.  Good deal!  We might check out some of the DVD’s as you can keep them for a week and we will normally either go into Ignacio or thru it to Durango within a week.

Our last stop in town was the Ute Sky Casino.  We signed up for player cards and they put $10 on them so I played both of our cards while Bill got a free soda and checked out the restaurants.  Then he gave me $20 to play and I won $33.25 so quit and gave him back his $20 and have $13.25 for my next visit.  It’s not a huge place but pretty nice.  Not many of the types of machines I like to play.  More of the new ones with the multi row play more money machines.  I’m sure I can find some though to take my money.

One of my close ups

This morning the appliance lady called to tell me she had ordered the part for my washer on Friday.  Not trusting her, I called the warranty company and verified and she did it on Friday but had she done it Thursday when I called it would have been delivered Tuesday so it could be put in on Wednesday, but now it will be another week.  I thought I’d do 2 loads when we got back from Ignacio but it was kinda late so I took Bill and the laundry to the laudromat and got them going and he sat and read his book while I came home and got dinner going.  We didn’t get to eat until almost 7 as I had bone in chicken breasts to bake and made Kam’s recipe of Tomato-Basil Risotto.  I topped it off with a salad and after dinner I made a big rhubarb crisp and put it in to bake while we took Xena for her loop walk.  The risotto was really good and Bill went back for seconds.  I’ve had the recipe for a while but never got around to trying it.  It’s a keeper.

Rebecca and Harlan stopped by for a few minutes to give us the name and number of a local (25 miles) RV repair guy in case we need it.  You never know!  I finished my current book so I could start on a Scarpetta book that will take me a while, it’s a thick one.  Bill read and we never even turned on the TV tonight.