Rubbish Rant, Race and Other Stuff

                                  

This is what I usually see when I get back from my morning round of RR cleaning.  This morning was a little hazy.  I liked the way that the trees are silhouetted with the sun coming up behind Lick Observatory.

However, ( Warning!!!!!  Here comes a short Rant.)   

Below is a picture of what I found when I rounded a curve in the road in one of the campsites.  The night before, someone dumped all this trash.  For the life of me, it is hard to understand why anyone would be so disrespectful of a beautiful public campground.  I know that there is a charge to take things to the public landfill, but really why go out of your way to come into the park to do it.  It’s just offensive!  Bruce, Maintenance supervisor tells me that sometimes it is cultural.  When asked why they do it some say “ My grandfather did it, my dad did it and I do it.”  It’s about time that someone should break the cycle and dispose of rubbish properly. 

                                   

Enough said!    Change of subject.

While cleaning the RR’s I found this Leopard  If it looks strange, it’s because it’s head got squashed between the door and door jam.  Just another CG casualty. 

                                   

Every now and again we get the large four legged camper.  This horse was grazing in the pasture early in the morning.  His owner allowed me to take pictures and gave her some extra feed so that I could capture her blue eye.  She has one blue and one brown.

                                   

 

I really like this picture with the morning sun.

                                

These were taken on Saturday morning.  The rest of the morning was spent taking pictures of the race event. This one wasn’t a fund raiser, but of a local group that does races and hikes all over the bay area.  Someone said that there is one somewhere every other weekend.  For this one they expected 3 or 4 hundred participants, nowhere near the last mud run.  They too do it every year here in the park.            

 

The cars just kept on coming in

    

and the racers kept on running.

         

Some of the racers came in Friday night to camp before the race and a few of the stayed until Sunday, however the CG was nowhere near full this weekend.  Since Labor Day weekend, things are slowing down a lot.

Now is when maintenance starts their various projects.  A week ago a water pipe broke near the RR by me, so there is no water below the RR.  Quite a few campers have requested to change sites closer to water and fortunately we were able to accommodate them.  This is Ruben and Jeremy working on the water source in the equestrian CG.  It was really hot.  I really appreciate these guys.

                               

I hope that you all are having a great week.

Thanks for visiting

 

Susan and Angel

Birthday Visit

 

Ted came for a visit Sunday night and in the morning after I cleaned the restrooms Ii took the rest of the day off so that we could celebrate my birthday.  We drove down into San Jose for breakfast.  We were going to Bill’s Cafe, but it was really busy and instead we went to Cafe Borrone in Menlo Park.  It took nearly an hour to be served scrambled egg dishes.  I think we should have gone to our first choice, as the food wasn’t that memorable.

                         

From there we checked out the location of the hospital were I will have my surgery in Redwood City.  Then we went to IKEA in Palo Alto.  I wanted to stock  up on my favorite preserves and other Swedish foods that I like.  The last errand was to stop at Walmart.  I had been trying to use up stuff in the cabinets before expiration dates.

                          

We got back to the Park after two and swung by the Maintenance Yard to borrow a taller ladder so that Ted could fix the LED lights under the awning.  When we got there, Bruce said that we would have to get it from the Cookhouse, but that was just a ruse to get me there.

                                               SURPRISE

                         

It was a Tres Leche Cake with Mocha Whipped Cream Frosting.  It was really good and extremely rich.  That’s Danny, Ruben, Bruce and Ted.  Theresa and Angel got stuck doing other things, but came by later to wish me a Happy Birthday.  Thank you All for the Surprise Party.

When we got home Ted helped bring in the groceries.  While I put them away, he decided to take a nap.  When I finished I did too. I think that I had a little too much of that cake and had to let it digest before I could do anything else.

Later that evening Ted grilled a steak and zucchini for dinner.  We also had roasted potatoes and sautéed onions and mushrooms and a glass of wine.  Yummy!!

Unfortunately he had to return home to San Francisco right after dinner  It was a wonderful day with friends and family.

                                           A few more  critter pictures.    

                 Hummingbird                                            Acorn Woodpecker

 

                   Sows and piglets                                            Boar

         Doe and twin fawns                                  Turkeys and almost grown babies  

   Dead Tarantula

It is hard to believe that it is already September, the kids are back in school, and summer is almost over.  It just flew by.  I hope that you all had a great one.

Thanks for visiting

It wasn’t scary at all.

Susan and Angel

Beginning To Think About The Next Move

                           

                     Just another view of My Spot II here at J D Grant Co Park.

I’ve been here since last April and it is getting close to the end of my 6 month contract.  I will have to start preparing to move to Monterey Co. near the Pacific coast for the winter.  The “basement” storage compartments have to be gone through.  Is there anything that I can get rid of that I haven’t used since I’ve been here?  Can I reorganize or consolidate?  I need to find a place for everything that I have been using on the outside, chairs, grill, tables, rug, hanging baskets, planter, solar lights, wheel covers among other things that I use inside and outside. 

I’ll have to figure out when to cancel my land line and internet service.  I will also have to work on the logistics of more surgery on my arm.  The orthopedic doctor will be taking out the titanium rod and screws in October.

I still have things in cabinets that I may not need, but then again there are some things that I don’t want to get rid of if I decide on settling down in one place.  I know that that is something that my kids want me to think about doing.  I don’t think that I’m quite ready to do that yet, but I am thinking abut it.

I know, it’s been a while since my last post.  I have been trying to work enough hours each day.  I still manage to work over my 20 hours each week.  It is still busy on the weekends and that’s when I get the most hours.  During the week there are few campers, in fact, there are some nights that I am the only one in the park.  It is really nice and quiet until I hear the coyotes howling early in the morning.  Only one reservation for today and that’s in the other CG and one other in this CG in one of the non-reserveable sites.  The campers start arriving tomorrow, Friday.  There are only a few sites left for Friday,but we probably fill up quickly and Saturday is already full except for those non-reserveable sites which will also fill before the end of the day.  Most campers will be here through Monday, Labor Day.  That’s when there will be that “Mass Exodus”.

Ted will be coming for a visit after he gets off work Sunday.  Monday morning we may just go down the mountain for a Birthday breakfast and get back here for the exodus.  Last week he was able to go to Chicago with some friends.  The picture below is of the apartment where we lived when he was 6 years old.

                                    

We lived on the second floor and the kids went to school across the street.  I believe that the fence is new since we lived there.

I have few more pictures of the park.

Below is the amphitheater and the Bat Houses.  That is why we don’t have many mosquitoes.  Now it they would only eat the face flies.

  

On the left, if you click on it you can see those piglets that I have been trying to get all summer and the other is a tarantula.  They are  beginning to come out.  every now and again I find a dead tarantula in the restrooms.    

 

 

                                     Don’t you just love a morning sky?

This little fellow has been driving Angel nuts.  She sits inside at the top of the stairs and whines because she can’t get to it.

                                

There are times when it is a low growl when she sees these guys.

  A doe and growing up faun.

I took these through my door.

There is actually one out there now and Angel is watching it, but not growling.  She is such a good girl when I tell her “No Bark”.

I have been creating folders for this particular park and will send them to the people who create the publications for the County  Park System.  They may use them in the Play Here Magazine or on their face book page. 

I guess that it is time to close this post.  I wish you all a happy and safe holiday.

Thanks for visiting

This is where I go as soon as Mom gets back after cleaning restrooms.  It’s warm and snuggly in Mom’s bed.

Susan and Angel

Feral Pig / Foggy AMs / Volunteer Recognition

                          

This boar and I had an encounter earlier in the morning before this photo was taken.  Right after I had finished cleaning the RR in Snell CG he was about to cross the road that I was on when we saw each other, I braked and he did a 180* and ran off into the brush.  Scarrrrry!   That was on encounter that I would have liked to get on video.

                            

Here it is, mid August and we still get Foggy cool mornings.  The marine layer on this particular morning was so thick that I could only see about 100 ft.  I really could have used a windshield wiper on the inside as well as on the outside.  In this picture the fog was already burning off.  I thought that this van was neat.  It is a rental with a tent on top.  The family was visiting from Holland.

Last Saturday I took off a few hours to attend the Volunteer Recognition BBQ.

         According to the hours listed, as of end of June I had over 250 hours.

Here’s a few pictures from the BBQ. 

  Some other volunteers.

Sara,  she’s the one who hired me over the phone.

Registration table.

We were served by the Rangers, roast beef, chicken, beans, salad.  It was good.

As a thank you, we were given a nice backpack.

 

Update on the broken arm:  

I have been having problems since the surgery.  It still is swollen with not full movement and some nerve damage.  I have finally been referred  to a specialist.  He says that since the bone has healed, that I should have all the metal removed.  I will probably have that done sometime in October, in between jobs.  I don’t have the details set yet.  I just hope that it will take care of the problem.

                                           

I hope that you all are having a nice summer.  For me, it has flown by.

Thanks for visiting

It gets chilly on those foggy mornings.

Susan and Angel

Signs Of Harry Potter and Mr. Fix It Comes To Call

                             

 

Every now and again I have to de-web the food lockers.  When doing it a week or so ago, all of a sudden there was a swarm of spiders trying to get out as fast as they could and I got out of the way as fast as I could.   When I got to the next locker that had the ball of spiders, (now I know what to look for and not freak out) I was able to get pictures.  First one is the nest, second is of one of the spiders and third is when I disturbed them.  You can click on the pictures to enlarge them.  One of these days I’ll try to post a video of something.

Not too much has been happening here in the park.  When cleaning campsites I came across a couple of rattlesnakes.  This one was just sunning himself on one of the curbs in one of our popular sites.  I called maintenance and Jeremy and Ruben teamed up to encourge it to go elsewhere.  Since it was midweek and we weren’t busy they didn’t capture and relocate.  Then at the beginning of the weekend, I found another one in the other CG that seemed to maybe sick as it didn’t respond even though it was alive.  Jeremy came to the rescue and captured it and did relocate this one.  He thinks that since it was early in the morning, that it just hadn’t warmed up yet.  Either way I’m not messing with any snakes.

                  Thank you to the Snake Wranglers of Grant Co. Park

             These are the only reptiles that I deal with.  Frogs and Lizards.

 

Last week I noticed that there was something dripping from under the coach.  It seemed to be water but I couldn’t figure out where it was coming from.  We did have a bit of rain overnight, but that wasn’t it.  Jeremy, (in maintenance) came over and checked under the kitchen sink, but it was dry under there.  So we decided to wait, Ted was coming for a visit.  It took him all of 3 minutes to determine what the problem was.  Sunday we took a ride to Camping world and picked up a replacement shower faucet and some silicone  caulk at Home Depot. It turned out that it was a leaking faucet and the shower pan had a crack in it where it came together with the shower walls.  He was also able to widen a slot in the drain so that he could use a mini drain snake to clean out a bunch of “gunk” including hair from before I had the MH.  So far that seems to have solved the problem.

I’m so glad that Ted is around to help me out.  Thank You Ted!!!!

I finally broke down and turned on the AC.  I hope that you all are staying cool and enjoying the summer.  August will soon be behind us.

Thanks for visiting

I got to go for a ride with Ted.  He took me to PetSmart where I got a bath and my nails clipped and ground.  He says I smell better and I feel better.  It’s so dusty riding around in Mom’s little truck. 

Susan and Angel