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As mentioned in my previous post, we went to visit Phoenix’s Desert Botanical Garden last week. It was so beautiful. Not only did we get to see the Chihuly Art in the Desert, we also went into the Butterfly Pavilion. The DBG’s website describes it as, “…a 3,200 square foot open-air structure, featuring lush garden plantings, a water feature, thousands of live butterflies, engaging programming and a state-of-the-art nursery space.”

We didn’t linger terribly long. It was cool, but the garden facility/grounds is quite large. Plus, they may have had thousands of butterflies, but there were only about seven different species, many of which I had seen before. And it was CROWDED. I did manage to capture a few pretty pics though.

Like Monarchs, the Queen butterfly needs milkweed to survive. Have YOU planted milkweed in your garden yet? If you decide to plant some, be careful as it’s the kind of plant that spreads underground. If you only have a small space and don’t want it encroaching on other plants, put it in a container.

There were oodles of these butterflies in the pavilion. It seemed like there were more of these than any of the other species on display. I saw quite a few of these when we were in Florida. It’s actually one of my favorite kind of butterflies.

 

 

 

The next two are both Zebra Longwings, which were well represented. I think the pics are pretty, though, so wanted to share.

 

The coolest critter sighting is thanks to Mike who spotted this guy hunting in the gardens outside of and away from the butterfly pavilion.

 

 

That’s it for critters photographed at the DBG. Below are pics I captured yesterday here at the RV park. I have no idea what kind of lizard it is.  Its body was about 8 or 10 inches long. In all, from its nose to the tip of its tail, I think it was about 14 or 18 inches long. But that’s a guesstimate.

 

There are lots and lots of different kinds of lizards here in the Sonoran Desert. I have so much to see and learn! I’m really looking forward to it, too. 🙂

 

Finally, after months of hanging out in and around the southeastern portion of the United States, it was time to head west. Our original plan had been for Mike to retire at the end of 2021, at which point we were going to head west. But that got moved up a bit. And since we didn’t really have a plan at that point, we decided to stick to the southeastern portion of the country so we could work out all of the kinks as we adjusted to full-time RV living.

We were in Florida for the entire month of December (except for our quick Christmas visit to NC) through January 11. That’s when we left our quiet, remote, tropical nature paradise in Florida and headed west to Texas.

Of all of us, Belle has the hardest time adjusting to changes. The five-day transition period was especially tough on her. Understandably so, too. All of the campgrounds were so different. And, being a dog, I’m sure she doesn’t understand the concept of a house on wheels and parking next to other people with dogs and their own house on wheels.

She settles down eventually. It’s always better when we stay in one place long-term.

We will have been in San Antonio for a week, come tomorrow (Friday). She’s almost comfortable with the environment here, but we are moving tomorrow. We are headed to an Army Corps of Engineers facility that’s sorta midway between San Antonio and Austin. We will only be there for a few days before we head to Fredericksburg, Texas for a week and then Terlingua, Texas (near Big Bend National Park) for 25 days.

This is how different our sites were for those five days…

Monday: Yellowjacket RV Resort in Old Town, Florida

Tuesday: Five Flags RV Park in Pensacola, Florida

Wednesday: Champagne Swamp Tours (Harvest Host) in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana

Thursday: Katy Lake RV Resort in Katy, Texas

Friday: Traveler’s World RV Resort in San Antonio, Texas

We were all happy to get here and settle-in for the week. I think Mike was happiest.

Don’t get me wrong, this has been a great campsite. It’s convenient to everything and surrounded by barbecue and Mexican restaurants, it’s just very different from the super-chillaxed existence we’ve enjoyed for the last few months. All the activity has been a nice change of pace. And the food has been delicious!

Now that we actually have an RV, it’s time for me to get my rear in gear and start thinking about trip planning. I’m only a couple days into that new mindset and have already realized that travel planning for RV life is not as easy as plain old ordinary trip planning. There are so many more things to take into consideration!

Maybe I should have thought about this stuff before buying an RV. Nah, what fun would that be?

Size Matters

When making reservations at campgrounds, you have to think about the size of the site, whether it has the appropriate hookups (electric, water, and sewer), is it a back-in or pull-through, is the site shaded or fully exposed in the middle of a big ole field, how close are the neighbors, etc. Some campgrounds, especially at state and national parks and forests, cannot accommodate big rigs like ours.

Location, Location, Location

Unlike regular travel planning, where you pick a place to visit then find an appropriate hotel, RV travel means finding a suitable campground and then finding the right site within that campground. It’s not a huge deal for short stays, but if we’re going to be staying in a place for a week or more, we need to be happy with our site.

A lot of campgrounds I’ve looked at post maps of their facility and even pictures of the individual sites. The maps tell you which sites have what hookups and the pictures show you how each site is laid out. Pics are not usually catalogued by number though, which means a lot of scrolling through a slew of site pics.

Rules and Regulations

I suspect most campgrounds have similar rules in terms of quiet time, number of people per site, whether or not you can park a car at your site, what to do with trash, whether or not visitors are allowed, etc. Some campgrounds restrict occupancy to older folks like us. Senior living at its best. I had no idea there were RV parks catering to seniors, but am happy to know that’s the case. I like kids well enough, but they can be pretty loud and, sometimes, obnoxious. Camping to me means peace, quiet, and solitude, not being surrounded by a horde of screaming children. Again, a night or two at a family campground would be tolerable, but long-term, I want peace.

The Big Picture

Planning for RV living also requires looking at where we want to be AND when we want to be there. It just would not be practical to, say, visit Arizona for a week, then Vermont, then Florida. That would just be too much driving. If we think ahead, we can make our way around the country methodically. So, depending on what time of year we sell our house, we will either head to the northeast or make our way south.

Mike and I have sort of been making a list of places we want to go/see. You know, when we think about adding a place to the list. Now, we need to get serious and finalize our list, or at least get it more filled-out, so I can start plotting our future.

The Best-laid Plans…

It’s never easy to plan perfectly for the future because one never knows what the future REALLY has in store. This year is the perfect example. Who would have ever thought that the world would change so much in a year?

But planning is still important. The more one knows, the easier switching gears will be when/if needed.

If there’s a state or national park campground we really want to visit at a particular time of year, advance planning is a necessity. Those kind of sites get booked well in advance.

It’s a Process

I still have a lot to learn, but, the good news is, I have gotten started. I’m excited to have a new challenge to figure out. It gives me something to focus on beyond just making it through every day. And the amount of effort I put into this exercise now will certainly help make the transition to RV life more enjoyable. And enjoyment is key. I’m pretty sure we won’t want to live like nomads forever, so we need to make the most of our wandering life.

I’m very much looking forward to this next chapter in our lives.

One of the weirder things about 2020, from my perspective, is how time seems to have compressed or collapsed in on itself. Things that happened last week seem to have happened months ago. Looking back on events in February 2020 feels more like looking back on 2019. Revisiting events of 2018 can sometimes feel like a lifetime ago. Anyhoo…

I’ve finally decided to stop trying to figure out the why behind everything and just start living, for better or worse. I’m going with the flow and trying to exercise a little faith. Fingers crossed my resolve lasts. As for those details, I figured it was about time I shared.

A Bit of Backstory

Hubby, Mike, has been counting-down to retirement for quite a while. When I asked him how long he’d been counting, he said “like, 11 years now.” For most of that time, I was not really paying attention to his countdown. I am much younger than him (he’s about 11.5 years older than me). As his retirement nears, we’ve started talking about what life will look like for us once that date hits about 68 weeks from now. It’s a good thing to talk about because his vision and mine were sorta different.

One thing we were both firmly on the same page about was buying an RV to replace our house. One day. We’ve been going to RV shows for the past couple of years, looking at the many different brands, sizes, and styles of motorhome, narrowing down the search. We each had some likes and dislikes. He had some must-haves (diesel engine, residential fridge, king-size bed, washer/dryer, and a dishwasher) and some nice-to-haves, like leveling jacks, generator, swiveling captains’ chairs, and tag axle). I didn’t have any must haves, but I was REALLY wanting a ceiling fan in the bedroom, a half-bath, and a dinette table with free-standing chairs instead of a dining booth.

Mike’s been looking at RVs, window-shopping as he says, since we started seriously discussing the nomad life. He saw one that was being offered at a good price, seemed to be in good shape, and, most importantly, had almost every feature he and I wanted.

He asked if I thought buying now would be a good idea. After all, the plan had always been to purchase one after we’d sold our house. We still own our house, but the way I see it, buying now will give us time to practice. We can just camp in the thing over random weekends for a while to figure out how stuff works, determine what we need/don’t need, get used to various types of camping, etc.

Long story short, I said yes. He ramped-up the negotiations and preparations, and, before we knew what had hit us, we were driving to Kentucky to pick up a big-ass, new-to-us RV.

Picking Up Our New-to-us RV

Relatively speaking, it all felt very spur-of-the-moment. From the time he started negotiating to the time we left to pick it up, only about two and a half weeks had passed. In that short span of time, he negotiated a deal we both felt comfortable with, purchased insurance, secured a loan, found an inspector, scheduled the inspection, reviewed the inspector’s report, requested some repairs, and pronounced the unit safe to purchase.

All I had to do was ponder some questions, deliver some answers, and figure out how to get away from work early enough on a Friday for the 8.5-hour drive to Kentucky.

I was excited to be able to take Belle along for the ride. She’s getting older, and I’d really like to have her with us to start this next chapter of our lives.

She did really well on the long drive south and west, and she settled right in on Saturday morning while the dealer’s tech was giving us a quick walk-through.

Truth be told, she doesn’t love riding in cars, and she’s only slept in a hotel once or twice, so she was probably exhausted from traveling the day before.

It is a 2016 Entegra Coach (make) Aspire 44B (model). Entegra is one of the higher-end brands, so it comes standard with a bunch of bells and whistles, including four slide-outs. I haven’t taken many interior pics yet, but here are some more views of the outside.

Oddly, we both remembered it having more red on the exterior. We were wrong, but I still think the paint scheme is pretty awesome.

Mike drove it like a pro, despite heavy downpours crossing a couple of the mountains and a faulty windshield wiper, which we didn’t discover until we hit said rainstorms.

It’s hard to tell how ginormous the thing is unless there’s something alongside of it for scale. As it happens, when we stopped at a rest stop to walk Belle, one of us snapped this pic with my Toyota RAV-4 parked behind the beast.

Our First Camp-out

Rather than drive the whole way home on Saturday, we stopped at a campground just outside of Wytheville, Virginia to spend the night.

And here we are sharing our first meal together in our new camper.

I did not cook, we just drove to a nearby Burger King. We’ve clearly fallen off the healthy eating wagon, but not for long!

All went well that night. We all slept just fine.  And the next morning, Belle and I said hello to the campground’s neighbors.

The drive the rest of the way home took about five hours, give or take. Mike continued driving the behemoth like a pro. I still have not ridden in the thing, unless you count going from our parking spot at the dealership to the propane tank.

I’d already planned a getaway with a girlfriend for the week of Labor Day, so we still haven’t had any other camping adventures. But we do plan on going camping next weekend.

That’s a pic with two of the slide-outs extended. I’ll get some interior pics next weekend when we are camping.

The paint job on the back-end is my favorite part. Maybe because I got to stare at it for hours on end while driving?

We’re pretty sure we will be buying a convertible car to tow along. I’m not sure why, but I haven’t really been into riding the bike lately. I’m just as happy cruising along in a zippy convertible. Time will tell whether we keep the bikes or not. Crazy, right? I never would have thought I’d be saying that at this point in my life, but 2020 has been such a weird year in so many ways.

I look forward to blogging again and sharing this next phase with those of you who still care to read.

Those of you in the CA-OR-WA fire zone and those nearby in Canada, stay safe! We are thinking of you and sending all kinds of positive vibes your way. Please take care. Perhaps by this time next year, or soon thereafter, some of us will be able to camp together.  Imagine all the campfire stories!

Despite my long absence from the blogosphere, we are all alive and well. Hubby and I are weathering the pandemic just fine. So far, anyway. We are both careful when we go out, wear masks, use hand sanitizer, keep our distance from people, etc.

We have not traveled much. Back in June, I spent an abbreviated week working in Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina. I really wanted to go to the beach, and I knew a change of scenery would be refreshing.

In July, we visited our daughter Amy and her family for a long weekend, then came home and just pretended we were retired for the rest of the week. It was quite enjoyable.

We’ve been talking about getting an RV for a while. Over the past couple of years we’ve been to several big RV shows looking at various sizes, models, and floor plans. Recently, Hubby happened to find one for sale online that has all the features and layout we wanted. It’s a bit bigger than we thought we’d get, but the price was right, so…

Next weekend, we will be driving south to Kentucky to pick up our new-to-us coach. Initially, we thought we would sell the house and then buy an RV, but this way we’ll be able to decide if we actually like living in the thing for weeks or months at a time. If we don’t, we can keep our house and figure something else out. I’m pretty sure we will like it, though. But time will tell.

Maybe now I will at least have some interestingness to blog about. We are both very much looking forward to easing into this next chapter in our lives.

Hello, and welcome to this week’s Practice Makes Perfect (PMP) second reveal. The theme selected for this week was Ground, Texture.

I’m really looking forward to seeing how other participants interpreted the “assignment.”

I enjoy challenges like this because participants can choose how they want to play. Does one go the simple, seemingly obvious route and take pictures of texture on the ground? Or does one think a bit and get creative?

I did a little bit of both.

Textures on the Ground

I see this puddle on the ground often. It is along one of the regular routes Belle and I walk through town. Like other puddles, it isn’t always there. It varies in size, too. Sometimes there are ripples (from wind) and sometimes there are rocks or other stuff in the puddle. Every now and then, I see a bird or two using it as a birdbath. Depending on the time of day, sometimes the colors are far more dramatic.

Recently, I have been giving more thought to differences between people. Not just physical differences, but things like how people see and think about things. The differences are amazing. Understanding those differences explains a lot in terms of how we communicate with each other, how we interact, why we do the things we do, how people react and why.

Hubby and I often “argue” about colors. Not the colors themselves, but the name for a particular color. There’s a building here in town that I say is purple, but he insists is brown. The more I think about that, the more I realize he and I might actually see the color differently.

That got me thinking about reflections. Reflections often catch my eye. When I am with others, it’s usually me who either notices a reflection first or is the first person to say, “Oooh, look at the cool reflection.” Is that because I just like reflections more than other people? Because I am a more-visual person? Or because others don’t see reflections until someone else points them out? What are reflections, really? Optical illusions (simple explanation backed by science) or windows into an alternate reality (complex and kinda crazy explanation)?

I don’t know. All I do know is that reflections intrigue me. That reflection is particularly interesting to me because there’s the lighter sidewalk on the left, with it’s kind of smooth texture, and the darker, bumpier asphalt on the right, with the smooth-as-glass reflection in the middle. The reflection itself changes depending on the viewer’s perspective. (I’m thinking we may need to use reflections as a future theme.)

Foreground Texture Adds Depth to Images

I’m a sucker for beautiful sunrises/sunsets, blue skies, and interesting clouds. My clearest, big sky, west-facing view around town is from a parking lot that just happens to overlook the county jail.

Here’s a nice sunset photo, captured with my phone. I have an older iPhone 6S. It doesn’t capture sunsets nearly as well as my point and shoot camera or as well as newer models of the iPhone. But it does okay.

The sunset I captured was just nice, in my mind. Sunsets are far more interesting to me when there are more clouds in the sky. How does one make that photo better? I cannot manufacture clouds, but I can incorporate some interesting foreground textures.

The next image is captured from about the same spot. I didn’t move my feet, I just squatted down. It changes the image dramatically, right?

I shot that image from atop a hill and the grasses and weeds are pretty tall. Squatting was all it took to add foreground to that shot. Sometimes, you have to work harder to add foreground texture. Take this tree as example #1.

The clouds caught my eye first. I thought the trees made for an interesting subject to demonstrate my next point. Squatting wasn’t enough in that case. Because the ground was flatter, the only way I could incorporate the grass in my foreground was to get pretty low to the ground.

Example #2 makes for a much more interesting image, right? Relative to the first one. By itself, however, that image still isn’t great.

I moved a step or two to the right, stooped WAY down again, and captured the next image, example #3.

Crazy how much that changes the image, right?

I probably looked like an idiot to passersby, if there were any, but the end result was worth it. In my opinion.

Here’s another version, which is example #4.

The last image includes more grass in the foreground. Which version of the tree images do you like best? I like example #3, personally.

Subjects on the Ground

What about when your subject is closer, and on the ground. Like these cute Buttercups?

Getting close isn’t always the final answer. Anyone can zoom in to capture a close-up photo of flowers. (Pretend that shot is actually in focus.)

How do you make a more-interesting flower photo? Get on the ground.

That’s a really dramatic example of the different effect you can achieve just by changing your shooting perspective. My camera was pretty much in the grass at that point, but it’s worth it. I think the second shot, version 2, is FAR more interesting than version 1

Here’s a slightly different image.

Perspective matters. 🙂

Theme for Next Week

I think we should focus on light next week. How? By shooting the same subject in the same, exact spot on different days and at different times. For this challenge, you have to stay indoors.

PMP3: Same Spot, Different Day & Time

Thanks for playing along!