A Day to Relax

Yesterday was a much-needed day to lie like vegetables and unwind before moving along this morning. We'll have a long day of driving today (325 miles) to reach Heyburn, Idaho, a stopping place along the way. There is a nice RV park there, right along the Snake River. As for yesterday, we were able to get out for two walks. It's a peaceful atmosphere here, and there's a nice walking path along the hot spring creek. I took lots of pictures.

In yesterday's post, I mentioned the blood red sunrise. The air is smoky here, and it was mostly overcast until late in the day. It was okay with us because it kept things cool. It can get hot in this part of Oregon.

Sadie spent some time snoozing on Mike's lap. Smitty was in the chair beside them.

There are other campers here in the park, but you might think we had the whole place to ourselves.

Along our walk, we saw lots of this tall grass. I love how it shines in the sun.

We saw a cat stalking something not visible to us. I tried to get him to approach, but mainly he was pissed off that we'd blown his cover.

One can walk around a thicket of cattails and other reeds growing in the hot stream. Around the backside, a path is kept mowed, and it's very peaceful. There was a beehive hanging on this tree.

A short distance on, we noticed this sign.

We noticed that, indeed, there were honeybees flying past at regular intervals. Stepping around to the back side of the tree, we found a wild beehive. I have never actually seen honeybees in a wild hive, and this excited me no end. It might be the best thing I've seen all year.

There is something captivating about these next, um...what are they...reeds? Thistles? I'm not really sure what dies and leaves this behind, but they are favorite photographic subjects of mine. When I saw them, I let out an involuntary sigh of relaxation.

Moving on, these are snowberries. Usually I don't see these until all the foliage on their shrub has turned brown.

The lilypads were so pretty. I love the texture here:

As we approached, a frog jumped off into the water. We looked for more, but didn't see any. And here's another thing I've rarely seen...blooming lilypads. 

We see a lot of skunk cabbage in Oregon, but we don't often catch the lilypads when they're blooming.

The flower was a distance away, and I had only my point and shoot with me. I was experimenting with its zoom capability and kept taking pictures closer and closer.

These are wild rosehips:

If memory serves, this is some kind of wild aster.

Here's a thistle. These were growing by the lake.

There is a wildlife preserve across the road, and the park has put up lots of bird houses. There are houses for both small and large birds. Where the large birdhouses are hung, there is a metal ring around the tree, presumably to prevent predators (think raccoons) from climbing the tree and making off with the eggs. 

Here are a few more things we saw near the lake.

There were ducks on the lake, but they were too far away for me to capture.

On our way back, we noticed an olive tree. There were several along our way.

At the far end of the park, and near our site, there were horses grazing in a pasture. 

It appeared there were just these two.

As I drew closer, I could see there were more.

We seem to be on some kind of dragonfly migratory path. As we sat, we saw hundreds, maybe thousands, of dragonflies. Mainly they were flying in pairs, and they were um, "bothering" one another.

There are harbingers of fall everywhere.

We saw several trees beginning to turn their fall colors.

The stream runs along this hillside. I love the layers of color here.

Smitty was very brave and got out for a short walk. He looks better, doesn't he? It's good to have my kitty back.

Sadie watched from the window. She used to whine and cry to join us, but she seems resigned to being an indoor-only kitty when we're traveling. If you're new to this blog, just know Sadie is formerly feral. She reverts to feral when she's in strange surroundings. She's escaped from every harness we've ever tried, and when she gets loose, she runs away. We nearly lost her in Teddy Roosevelt National Park a few years ago. That was Sadie's last walk. 

We decided to cut into one of the five cantaloupes we brought. It looks good, but we didn't think it was ripe. And it really wasn't. There was a very thin layer of tasty melon. The rest was pretty rubbery. We'll keep waiting them out, checking them every few days. They're enclosed in a large paper bag along with a friendly Granny Smith apple to aid in the ripening process.

While we were sitting outside, yet another dragonfly landed on my arm and sat there for the longest time. Mike finally went inside to get the camera, and the dragonfly flew over and landed on our picnic table. He sat there for a long time too...long enough for me to take his picture.

As we sat, a red-winged blackbird landed on one of the trailered ATV's. He sat there and sang his guts out and chattered away. My guess is that he was hoping for some Fritos, or Doritos, or Tostitos, or some other kind of "ito" junk food. Oreos might do. In my experience, these guys who come begging aren't picky about their junk food.

Later in the day, we noticed the horses had come closer to the fence, and I was able to get a closer shot of them. I just love horses. My mother loved them too.

Okay, so I meant to show you this yesterday, and then, missed getting the picture uploaded to the blog. We made a few little changes to this "media center" in the RV. This is a place with two charging stations, and it has just a narrow shelf below the TV. When we check into an RV park, we're given the rules about quiet hours, etc., a map of the place to find the laundry room, trash, and recycling bins. It also has certain gate codes and wi-fi passwords. And so it's something we need around, but it's always cluttering up the place. Also here, we charge our phones and iPads. Before this, the cords were so long they were all over the place too. 

So we hung a little narrow strip of a metallic bulletin board where we could clip the paperwork and get it out of the way.  Then we found 12-inch charging cords for our electronic devices. It's so much nicer and more useful now. Living in this small space, we try to keep things tidy. By the way, if you want to see more of the interior of the camper, you can read this old blog post where I took you on a tour of our rig when we first bought it.

So I mentioned we were out for two walks yesterday. The second time around, I took my DSLR with macro lens attached. I have some more pictures to show you, but I'll save them for tomorrow. Today will be a mostly driving day, and so I don't expect I'll have much to tell you in tomorrow's. Since arriving here, I haven't done even a single stitch of embroidery. We're up kind of early this morning, and so I have some time. I made frozen breakfast burritos for these driving days. They're quick and easy and don't dirty any dishes. We'll start there and then be on our way fairly early.