Sunrise . . . my favorite time of day

There’s something about daybreak when camping.

Bridget and Spike sleep through the night.  At our former house, there never was a night somebody didn’t have to go out.  So here we are at Hord’s Creek Lake, the sun has not come up yet, and the three of us gaze eastward at the lake.  The sky turns a soft pink at the horizon.  It is absolutely quiet.  I can see great distances around the lake, yet it is absolutely silent.  Even the birds are still asleep.

Soon the sun appears.

We walk back to our camp.  I put the crew in their pen and I turn on the stove to get the percolator perking.  I sit in the camp chair next to the pen and watch the sun complete its morning debut.  The birds are beginning to stir.  I hear a whirring sound above my head.  A hummingbird on a reconnaissance mission!

I decide today is a good morning for fried eggs.

I fry eggs in the skillet my friend gave me.

Two eggs over easy, toast, and coffee. See the neat hat given to new Casita owners?

It’s fun cooking in my little kitchen.  I can reach everything I need by swiveling on my feet.  I get to use my new, retirement-gift iron skillet for the first time.  It works great, as you can see!

The toaster sets off the fire alarm.  Victor at the Casita factory did say it was super sensitive.  Again, no problem, because the alarm is within arm’s reach!

Breakfast outside is always a treat.

The morning is cool enough to do the dishwashing outside. I can watch the fish jump at the same time!

A friend of mine, upon hearing of my plans, asked, “What are you going to do all day?”  Well, here are some things I do around the campsite.

I fill two dishpans with water from the spigot at the neighboring campsite.  I put them on the picnic table along with a dish drainer and wash the breakfast dishes.  That way I can enjoy the outside.

When the dishes are done, I add a little soap to the rinse pan and wash three t-shirts and some underclothes.  I hang the wash on the metal panels of the dog pen (a discreet drying rack, by the way).  Everything dries in about ten minutes in this thirsty air.

I fix up a solution of hummingbird water and hang my new feeder. 

I wash the buggy windshield of the PTV and wipe the dead ants off the dash.  (Oh yeah.  I skipped writing about The Attack of the Black Ants.  Note to self:  Always spray bug spray on the electric cord and thresholds of the camper door and the PTV’s doors.  Do not leave empty soda cans in the PTV!).

I peel potatoes until I have a big potful and put them on the stove to boil.  I boil and peel eggs.  I chop peppers and onions.  All of this goes together with mayo, mustard, vinegar, and a touch of sugar to make my mother’s potato-egg salad, which is the best in the entire world.  I don’t have any salt, but it comes out yummy anyway!

The restroom and shower building are nearby.

It sits at the top of a small, rocky hill.  The crew and I accomplish multiple purposes when we make the trip up the hill.  We get our exercise and go to the bathroom, we see a great view, plus I take a shower.  I wear a summer-weight, snap-up housecoat with nothing underneath, and carry a tote with towel, shampoo and conditioner.  The grass under our feet is so dry it’s like the bristles of a hairbrush.

I’ve never used showers operated by sensors before.

At least not sensors like these!  The crew waits patiently on the other side of the shower door.  Once naked I timidly approach the sensors underneath the shower head.  Suddenly a blast of water bursts out like straight out of a fire hose, hits me squarely in the shoulder with such force it spins me like a top!  Hey!  I thought there was a drought going on!  No wonder the lake level is down.

I jump in and out of the fire hose.

Forget about adjusting the temperature. Someone higher up than I makes that decision.  Shampooing my head is tricky.  I’m sure most of my hair is blasted off.  Sheesh.  Oh well, at least I didn’t fill up my gray water tank.  And I do feel clean!  Spike poops in the path on the way down the hill.  Since we are the only ones in the park I decide to leave it there to see how long it takes the Texas sun to dry it into dusty fertilizer.  I make a note to check it next trip up the hill.  (And my friend thought I wouldn’t have enough to do!  Boy, was she so wrong.)

Supper is the potato salad and a lettuce-and-tomato salad.

That’s Friday.  Saturday the crew and I sleep a lot.  We meet Wade, the park guy, who comes by in his pick-up to check on us.  He says, “Oh, I see Jerome (the lone heron) is fishing for breakfast.”

“Yep.”

Two hummingbirds visit the feeder.

A few grasshoppers hop around in the sun.  They are bigger than the hummingbirds.  Dragonflies like the sun also.  They don’t bother us.  I also see a yellow ochre bird unfamiliar to me.  I resolve to look it up in my Petersen’s field guide which is buried six feet under in the PTV.  I see my first Texas lizard, a dull brown guy about eight inches long.  He wiggles back under a rock.  In the evening a herd of eight deer graze on the grassy slope across the lake.  Texas may be big, but its deer are tiny.

Approaching the campsite from Shower Blast Hill

A couple in a fifth wheel with slide-out arrive on Saturday.

Their dog, a mixed pug, gets loose and comes for a visit.  The lady comes over, apologizes, and says his name is Miles.  They live eight miles away in Coleman and are semi-retired.  It’s afternoon and the sun is hot, so we retreat to the air-conditioning in our homes-on-wheels.  The crew is panting hard anyway from barking their fool heads off because they’ve never seen a dog before.

Saturday night I cook spaghetti.

I study the Texas road map to figure out the next camp.  I want to head west out of Texas toward Cloudcroft where the temps are much cooler.  There aren’t any more COE parks out this way and I don’t have internet connection to find inexpensive alternatives.  The state parks are listed on the road map, so I decide to find one west of here, even though I know it will be pricey.

A bit of reading via kindle, another walk for the dogs (yikes, our first mosquito!), and it’s nighty-night!  It’s been a good day.

rvsue

Recent entries were posted late due to Verizon not recognizing several counties in the state of Texas.  (What’s that all about?)  You might want to check the past couple of posts to make sure you haven’t missed any of the exciting adventures of rvsue and her canine crew!