Tripometer – 12,065 mi
Gas Gauge – 908.875 gal
Location – Distant Drums RV Resort, Camp Verde, AZ
Lodging – $28
Cans of OFF – 4
We awoke this morning to a cold and rainy day outside. Thankfully we stocked up and cleaned the trailer yesterday giving us a nice area to work in during the day. Kelly has been in a groove with work over the past couple of days and has gotten on top of her regular work as well as pounded out her yearly performance appraisal. Paul has started to turn around the 3 week backlog of blog posts on Lessintents. During one period of rain in the morning, the National Weather Service issued a flash flood warning for the area. It was an interesting demonstration of the power of the emergency broadcast system to hear 100+ cell phones across the RV park all scream the emergency alert sound at the same time.
Our RV park this week has a nice dog park located about 50 feet from our trailer. We have been using the dog park as a tool to help work on Ranger’s aggressive behavior towards other dogs. Whenever we hear other dogs at the dog park we have been taking Ranger over to play. Sometimes he is so wound up going into the park that he has to take a breather at the fence to calm down a bit, nosing the other dogs within the park through the fence. So far we have been very pleased that he seems to only be aggressive when on a leash and not when in the dog park and off leash. Specifically, Ranger has been enjoying the company of a black lab named Cricket. Cricket’s owner, we call him ‘Sarge’, is a retired military man who wakes up at crazy early hours and always has a cigar, lit or otherwise, sticking out of his mouth. By day three or so Ranger had learned that Sarge brings Cricket to the dog park at 6-7ish every morning. For the past couple of days we have been woken up by Ranger running from one end of the trailer to the other (running over our sleeping forms in the process) whining to go play with Cricket in the dog park. He sure does need his canine companionship. Kelly, on the other hand, needs her coffee in the morning before social activities. This week she has been learning how to have casual conversation with Sarge before her morning caffeine. On the upside, having Ranger fully exercised at 8am has its benefits too!
In the evening today we sat down and had a proper discussion about the next few weeks. We have decided to target the end of the year to be home in Maryland. With that being determined, we have two major stops that we are trying to cover before we head home; New Orleans & the Florida shore. On our way east we want to hit a few smaller destinations; Petrified Forest National Park, Tombstone, AZ, Rock Hound State Park, and El Paso, TX. The current plan has us hitting those destinations in that order. Paul will be working over the next few days to see if we can find a good campsite in or around New Orleans for our visit. Our experiences in LA and Las Vegas have shown us that having a campsite close to town really helps to ensure we have a good time. So many of the tourist destinations in cities aren’t dog friendly. We need to find a place where we can leave the dog relatively safely while we tour museums and galleries in the area. Oh, and the best restaurants in NOLA aren’t going to welcome Ranger either, though the doggy bags will certainly be welcome when we get back to the trailer.