A Different Life II

[paiceman]

Hi Maggie:

Sounds like an adventure since you left us in Spearfish. FYI, Abby now swims an hour a day, none stop. I went in fly fishing and my feet froze in 10 minutes. Took the water temp, 44 degrees. Caught and released a 16" Brown Trout not ten feet from our AS.

Abby and Hopey love KOAs. Most have off leash dog parks where they can run wild and play.

Safe and Happy Travels.

Bud

[Lily&Me]

Yes, Bud, and a bit more adventure than I needed.

I get a bit panicky at times, thinking about how bad the brakes were.

Doug would have noticed that, as he would have tended himself to the tire pressure.

Something new to think about and pay attention to, while not feeling sorry for myself but instead remembering it is a privilege to be out here, going and doing and seeing.

When it gets to be later in the afternoon, Lily starts asking for her carrots, she has a small pile of carrot chips she is working on right now. I've started giving them to her all in one small handful, otherwise she drops one to wait for the next. Booger dog.

I stuck one of the bottles of Sun Garden Riesling in the frig yesterday, and opened it just a bit ago...it is as delicious as I remember.

You're in a beautiful spot there, Bud...enjoy.


Maggie

[Lily&Me]

Lily loves zero-travel days, and we were ready for some.

Didn't finish my coffee til after 9am, have done some cleaning and cooking in preparation for extended (for me) off grid camping....mueslix, bread dough, pasta salad, deviled eggs...for easy meals with minimal clean-up needed, as propane, water and holding tank capacity is an important consideration at all times.

I'd rather eat mostly cold or quickly prepared food, and save my water for drinking and other purposes more important to me than a hot and freshly prepared meal.

Lily thinks that any food at eye level is for her. Early in our travels with her, she helped herself to some apple Brown Betty cooling on a rear bench, not discovered til I could clearly smell cinnamon and apple on her muzzle when she returned from the rear to her favorite perch on my lap in the passenger seat.

Another time, she snatched an entire pancake off the paper plated lap of a little boy in a child sized camp chair. He was paying no attention, the pancake was right there, so she helped herself.

I have learned to tie her up and keep her away from others at meal times, as she is a shameless beggar...you'd think she was still a starving dog.

I didn't think that toasted oats would interest her, so had the skillet of them cooling on a mat on my little ottoman by the opened rear door...right at eye level.

Wrong... caught her lapping some up, and then looking chagrined when I scolded her.

Booger dog, but she's my booger dog.

Nice to have down time. I have a few more things I want to do today, need to pick up some prescriptions tomorrow, top off the fuel tank, so some laundry, etc.

We are meeting at the Wyoming Territorial Prison Saturday morning, in time for the 11am tour.

Doug would have loved visiting there...Butch Cassidy was once incarcerated at this prison, along with other post-Civil War bad guys.


Maggie

[rmkrum]

Above all else, dogs are opportunists.

Our rescued street digs will try to eat anything they can get hold of.

Tissues, plastic of any sort, erasers, you name it. They just seem to have to try, even though they are a bit chubby from their normal dog food ration. Not a crumb goes unsearched for, found, and consumed. Gotta be careful what they can reach, or climb on to reach.

Other than that, little lover furbabies...that can really look funny when at rest. This is "Cash" sound asleep. The tongue seems to indicate extreme pleasure...booger dog indeed.




Sent from my pocket Internet using Airstream Forums

[Lily&Me]

Lily doesn't try to eat non-living things, but is always eating a bit of grass or a weed, which I think is more throw back to her once starving days than not feeling well.

Another Airstreamer has arrived here in preparation for our GWA, so we are now at least two that will mini caravan to the prison on Saturday.


Maggie

[Lily&Me]

I'm reading a really excellent book...Once We Were Brothers, about the Holocaust. This is the write up on Amazon...

The gripping tale about two boys, once as close as brothers, who find themselves on opposite sides of the Holocaust.

Elliot Rosenzweig, a respected civic leader and wealthy philanthropist, is attending a fundraiser when he is suddenly accosted and accused of being a former Nazi SS officer named Otto Piatek, the Butcher of Zamosc. Although the charges are denounced as preposterous, his accuser is convinced he is right and engages attorney Catherine Lockhart to bring Rosenzweig to justice. Solomon persuades attorney Catherine Lockhart to take his case, revealing that the true Piatek was abandoned as a child and raised by Solomon's own family only to betray them during the Nazi occupation. But has Solomon accused the right man?

Once We Were Brothers is Ronald H. Balson's compelling tale of two boys and a family who struggle to survive in war-torn Poland, and a young love that struggles to endure the unspeakable cruelty of the Holocaust. Two lives, two worlds, and sixty years converge in an explosive race to redemption that makes for a moving and powerful tale of love, survival, and ultimately the triumph of the human spirit.

[DIR1]

hi, my neighbor just gave me that book... haven't started it yet.. maybe this weekend... hugs and love from here... keep having fun!!!!

[Lily&Me]

It is a very, very good book....hard to put down.

Do you suppose I have always had an inkling my German ancestors were Jewish, and therefore I have been reading omnivorously about the Holocaust?

Hmmmm?


Maggie

[ColoradoLady]

Maggie, I am always impressed by your deeply insightful prospective on life. IMO, you have a very strong soul with an intense desire for historical knowledge. If one were to truly believe in such things....you would have had an equally strong soul back then....whenever that may have been.

Have I said it before? I LIKE that in you. A strong soul...an old soul...my kind of people!

[Lily&Me]

I stayed up late last night to finish Once We Were Brothers...it was that good, I just had to read it to the end.

Fiction, based on real life events. Makes ones own minor hardships pale in comparison to what these people went through. Unimaginable.

Picked up a couple of prescriptions, bought bear spray at Murdoch's, a few final groceries....found little shelf stable creamers in the instant coffee section at Safeway, so added them to my off grid stash. Coffee without cream is just not good coffee.

Dumped my tanks, as I have been cooking and cleaning and filling them up...still need to fill the freshwater....but getting there.

Going to do laundry in the morning, and we will be on the way to the prison by 10 or so.

Fellow GWA attendee Jen, who arrived yesterday with her dog Q, and I are taking the dogs to a nearby reservoir in a bit, so they can play and romp and get to know each other some.

Both alpha females...seems to be a lot of those owned by we women traveling alone....is that accident, or do these dogs just gravitate towards us.


Maggie

[Hittenstiehl]

Strong women, strong dogs, strength in numbers.

[rmkrum]

Maggie, technically, in your little dog pack you are the alpha and Lily is the Beta. That's why she acts like she does.

In a larger pack there is even more hierarchy clearly set up. Bottom dog is the one that does all the barking and growling alarm. He's the Gamma. My Beta male only has to grunt to set the bottom dog off in defense mode.

If the threat/issue is big enough, they all bark. Rough on the ears, but interesting to see the behavior. Since the big guy, Teddy, at only 22 pounds sounds like a 90 pound dog, I'm real glad he does not always go off.

They even have a pecking order for turns at laps and petting. Teddy first, or the miscreant gets rumbled at. Truly a scary grunting growl from deep inside his huge chest. The others find someplace else to be...the Beta female, old as she is, ignores him and gets away with it.


Sent from my pocket Internet using Airstream Forums

[Lily&Me]

Hmmm, sounds complicated.

Lily and Q had a great time in the water, playing separately but not together. A few barks and snaps, but no teeth-to-skin contact.

Q is a masterful, long distance swimmer, and Jen takes him every day, searching out bodies of water for him. She's not a young dog. Jen throws a ball out very far, Q swims out to get it and brings it back...over and over and over again.

Lily didn't like the abrupt drop off at the reservoir and would only fetch a stick in the water as long as she could reach it with all four paws on firm rocks.

But, she played and got wet and had fun.

Temps are beautiful here. It was 44 when I woke up this morning, cold enough that I turned on some heat for awhile.

Sunny and 72 now.


Maggie

[rmkrum]

It is surprisingly complicated. That was just high level. They are fun to work with.


Sent from my pocket Internet using Airstream Forums

[Rocinante]

On a less-serious book note: If you haven't read "A Walk in the Woods" or maybe "In a Sunburned Country" by Bill Bryson, they are both quite entertaining. The first was made into a not-so-good movie recently and is about his hikes on the Appalachian Trail. The second is about his visit to Australia. Both are great, fun, mostly lighthearted, reads.

[Lily&Me]

Laundry done, rear shade re-attached with Velcro tape early this morning...I was in denial about that shade, thought that if I ignored it long enough it would fix itself.

Jen and I got to the Wyoming Territorial Prison well before 10 am this morning...after I took a wrong turn onto the interstate and had to backtrack.

Ray & Nancy and a couple of others were already here, and we are short just two at this time. Going to be a great group.

Have toured the prison, pressed some pennies for the grands, and mingled and talked.

I felt like I was awake all night last night, and am feeling very tired, so am leaving the others to carouse a bit more...me, I will read a bit and go night-night.

We will head out about 9am tomorrow, and I will post again when I can.


Maggie

[paiceman]

Not to get into a long discussion on pack behavior, but. Dogs, especially those who live in a gentle loving home are constantly looking for a breakdown in leadership and if seen will fill the void out of necessity to keep the pack whole. With single owners it's a constant "testing" to make sure the pack stays safe.

Just be, Lilly is a nice dog-enjoy her as I've witnessed and don't worry about it.

Enjoy the adventure with Ray et al

Bud

[rmkrum]

It's a lot of fun to watch them jockey for position, appeal to my wife for attention, and fight for a spot on the lap or special spots on the furniture.

Dogs are really complex with relationships. Add moving my son's two in and out and it really gets weird.


Sent from my pocket Internet using Airstream Forums

[Lily&Me]

We spent last night on a ridge overlooking a canyon.

High winds caused us to leave a day early, on to a spot more hospitable.

Lily enjoys roaming free.


Maggie

[DIR1]

that's a lovely pic... glad you can post...keep having fun!!!! hugs and love to ya