Our Goofy Kids

As this post goes live we've just returned from another trip to the desert oasis we happened upon back in July.  I'll go through those photos later, but thought today I'd share a few fun pics from our July trip.

First of all, doesn't Rich look cute holding his little purse?  Okay, it's not his purse, and it's not even a purse.  It's a tote bag I'd packed up for a picnic.  We crossed a creek and headed down this little trail.  I cannot resist following a path in the woods.

We'd intended on simply crossing this creek on our way to the lake, but LuLu had other ideas:

The water was slow and murky, but, trust me, it's nothing gross.  Just earthy and natural.  However, we hadn't planned for the dogs to swim there.  Once she was in the water, LuLu had trouble getting out again.  The bank was steep and undercut, but we called her over to a different spot where she could climb out easily.  LuLu is a very obliging little girl.

Wally, however, has a stubborn streak.

No way was he letting LuLu have all the fun, so he jumped in, too.  Same spot and he couldn't climb out, either.  Do you think he would be called over to a different spot?  NooOOOoo!  Rich to the rescue.

Here's LuLu again after a dip in the lake:

Everything is double the adventure with these guys.  Enjoy your day!

What's in a Name?

If we'd waited to name Wally and LuLu we might have called them Shoes and Socks.  When one shows up with socks, the other cannot be out-cuted, so will run for a shoe.  Naturally, we find it adorable.  Not sure why something like that is so adorable to us, but we're under their spell.

LuLu with socks:

Wally with shoe:

Really, though... can you imagine what the neighbors would think if they heard me calling out "Shoes!".  "Socks!"?  They'd think I was the crazy lady of Pine Street.

When we were awaiting the day we'd bring our brand new Golden Retriever puppy boy home...

... we knew we were in for a beautiful thing.  A faithful, sweet, kind, gentle, intelligent, loyal, trusted friend was coming to live with us.  He needed a good name.

I looked up names meaning qualities such as those.  Everything sounded too intellectual and pretentious.  So where did Wally get his name?  Well...

...from The Most Trusted Man in America -- Walter Cronkite.  Rich and I had both grown up knowing Walter Cronkite as a household name, and he'd recently passed away.  We felt like we'd lost a friend.

Also, on a lighter note... there was this guy:

He tugged at our heartstrings.

So there you have a trusted friend who's also adorable.

Now... how about LuLu?  We were waiting for the day we'd drive out of town to pick her up (I was SO excited) and we went over and over names.  It couldn't sound anything similar to Wally -- Wally and Lily, Wally and Daisy, Wally and Molly.  You get the idea.  Then Rich looked over my shoulder at this:

It's a Little Lulu doll my friend made for me years ago.  He said, "How about LuLu?"  Oh, my gosh, it was perfect!  I loved it!  And that's how our little LuLu got her name.

We all lived happily ever after.

Wishing you a happily ever after kind of day.

Calendar Pics

Hello!  I just have a couple of calendar pics today.  I'm pretty sure I shared these on my stamping blog, but not here yet.  The first is LuLu for this month:

August's calendar picture is Wally and LuLu together.  It was taken on our first camping trip in our brand new trailer, which we've now traded in for the motorhome.  Many good times yet to come!

I have some busy projects going on right now, so didn't have time for much more than this.  We'll be going on our last fair weather trip soon, and I can't wait!  Have a good weekend!

Embracing Time

Hello again, and happy Saturday to all!  We went away again in August.  Just four days and only an hour's journey, but it was lovely.  As always, my favorite photo subjects are Wally and LuLu, and I'm especially fond of the portrait shots with just enough landscape showing to suggest their beautiful surroundings.

The first here is LuLu, framed by arching grasses and backed by deep shadow.  She's looking across a little stream at Wally. 

And here's Wally looking back.

Rich and LuLu are standing alongside that little stream (click the pics for a better view).

The stream fed into this, the middle fork of one of our local rivers.

All the joy of raising our son, introducing him to new experiences and watching his face light up has, for the last several years, been transferred to Wally and LuLu.  To see them happy means everything to us.  Corny?  So be it.

Back at camp...  Little by little we're becoming acquainted with the best dog friendly RV parks, and the best sites in those parks to request when we call to reserve.  Look at all this space!  And that's just a smidgen of the space we had in this site.  We do not like the RV parks that are little more than a parking lot with no room to call your own.  Who wants to sit practically underneath the next RV's slide out sipping coffee in your bed head and jammies?  Not me!  In this end site we had plenty of privacy.

LuLu again:

The nice thing about these little getaways is time.  We all have it; the same number of hours in each day, but having time on your hands, time you can embrace, is a wonderful thing.  No reason to hurry.  Go at your own pace and, really, there's plenty to do, but it's not housework, laundry, grocery shopping, cooking, running errands, paying bills, keeping appointments...  We're planning another trip in early September.

See you next Saturday!  Have a happy day!

Garden

Now that we're doing all this fair weather motorhome travel I'm having a difficult time with the garden.  The last thing before we leave and the first thing when we come back I spend a good part of the day out there watering and deadheading.  If I'm lucky, the deer don't move in and feast while we're gone.  It's hard to keep deer spray on things that are constantly growing and blooming.

I'll share a few recent blooms that survived, some of which are done blooming now (click to enlarge):

And because the garden isn't complete without a Golden:

When we came home from our most recent trip the deer had chomped down all my Impatiens.  The next day they'd nipped off a few blooms from another plant.  I'm moving more and more flowers to pots in the fenced-in dog yard.  The hydrangeas aren't doing well this year and that's not because of the deer.  Some of them do not have a single bloom.  Weird.  At the rate things are going, the garden will be all evergreens and ferns soon.  I persevere, sigh...

You take care, now, and enjoy the remaining days of summer.  I'm stretching it out as long as possible.  See you here next Saturday!

Picking up where we Left Off

Driving through Oregon's hot, high desert country... I have bunches of pics, but will limit to a few.  LuLu was happy to keep on exploring...

(Click on all pics for enlarged view.)

... but after a quick sniff around, Wally was ready to return to the air conditioning.  I'm with Wally!

Pictured below is the severely salty Lake Abert.  Getting saltier as the water level drops.  Do not enter!  It's so caustic it will eat the bottom out of a boat, so you can imagine what it would do to your skin.  Water birds don't seem to have a problem and there are always a few swimming around feasting on brine shrimp.

After a long drive we came to a desert oasis.  Yep, that's what I look like when I'm saying "LuLu" -- goofy -- but LuLu's plenty cute with her little furry paws reaching for me.  Speaking of paws... notice behind the sign.  It looks like I have dog feet, tee hee!  That's Wally.  Too funny.
 

Pictured below is the first thing I saw when we drove into town.  Tiny and cute!  I was impressed by the level of civic pride in this itty bitty town.

We were so busy being enchanted by the diminutive city hall and library that we almost missed the RV park which was the true desert oasis.

They were full up when we arrived, but the owner put us up in a temporary spot for the night and moved us into the best site in the park the next day.  Actually, all the sites were large, shady, and beautiful, but this one on the end was amazing.  We had all this...

... and much, much more.  Wally and LuLu had the run of the place.  Jump in the river any ol' time and have a roll in the grass afterward.  The structure you see in the background is a vintage dwelling the owner moved to the park.  The only thing dwelling there now is bats.  At night we'd watch them swoop through our site and over the river accompanied by the sound of coyotes howling in the hills.

The picnic table beyond us is not an RV site.  It was used only once in the four days we stayed, and that was by an older couple who stopped for lunch.

Some days we were the only campers in the park.  Everything on this side of the RV is ours.  Are you getting an idea of how much I loved this place?  We're going back in September.

On the road again:

Looking back the way we came:

A quick stop at the Painted Hills on the way home.  For real.  What more can I say?

Well, friends... as this post goes live we're returning from yet another little getaway.  Just an hour's drive from home, but idyllic nonetheless.  It sure is nice to have a chance to slow the pace now and then.  We'll visit again next Saturday.  Take care!

Road Trip!

So... I mentioned we traded our trailer in on a motorhome and went on another trip.  It was a good, old-fashioned road trip -- we had a route planned, but no reservations.  Just come what may and keep our fingers crossed that we could find some good places to camp.  Here's our new digs in our first campsite of the trip :

(Click for enlarged views.)

I know!  Can you really call that camping?  Why, yes you can.  We've camped with nothing more than sleeping bags on the ground and the stars overhead.  We've camped in tents, vans, and trailers.  At our age and with two Golden Retrievers, this is the best kind of camping yet!

There are two slide outs, so it's very roomy.  Looks long, but it's surprisingly easy to maneuver, and it's actually about 12' shorter than our truck and trailer combo.  It doesn't bend in the middle and it's super easy to back into a space (a rear camera helps).  No hitching up.  We just load up and drive away.  I can't say enough about how awesome it is.

Our first stop wasn't too awfully far from home.  We stayed two nights at Lake Lomolo's brand new KOA campground.  They were very relaxed about the dogs, and there was lots of space to run free and do what Wally and LuLu love best.

Awesome views.  Unfortunately, the cloud in the photo below was partly smoke:

On the road again...  We've traveled most roads in Oregon, but I don't remember Hwy 140.  It was pretty and very rural, isolated.  We stopped here for lunch.

Love that we can fire up the generator for a cup of coffee, relax in the shade...

We met another traveler there:

We spent the night at a plain old RV park before we crossed into Oregon's desert country the next day.  I'll wait till next Saturday for the rest of the trip, but here's LuLu investigating a desert find:

It's been a great summer for us.  I hope your's is the same.  One doesn't have to travel far to enjoy nature, but it's been fun getting out there.  See you again soon!