Thursday, April 15, 2004

Durango

Sunday

A leisurely leaving from Navajo. The orioles came by for a visit this
morning. The striking black and yellow female, and the striking black and
orange male. They sang to us from the tree. The kingbirds fluttered and
hovered and hawked for insects. We enjoyed the cool morning. We drove to
Durango. Settled into the Alpen Rose RV Park. Located tomorrow's job.
Located the train station for the steam train ride to Silverton. Located
the Wal-Mart Superstore and treated Judy to anything she wanted for Mother's
Day. Got phone calls from the kids. Ate some serious barbeque. Serious.
I mean it! The name of the restaurant is Serious Texas Barbeque. Very good
very different. Very thirsty. Drank water, club soda, ate and drank fruit
cups. Too full to drink any more. Still thirsty. Drank Alka-Seltzer.
Good barbecue.

Rags is a water connoisseur. He can drink his water straight from the pet
dish, but, generally, that is not what he wants. At home, we have an
electric watering dish, that holds water in a reservoir and constantly
circulates it with a pump. It filters it then drops it back into the dish
with a tiny waterfall. He prefers that. He prefers water from unusual
places. His favorite place seems to be the bathroom sink. He'll bug you to
death while you're at the sink, until you give up and set the plug, turn the
water on till it fills all the way up, then turn it off, or better yet,
leave it just slightly on with enough trickle to keep it constantly seeping
out the overflow drain. Leave it like that, and he'll spend an hour lurking
by the mountain lake, drinking to his satisfaction.

Hummingbirds here too. We listened to them before we left Navajo. Nothing
like Sylvan Lake last year, though. At Sylvan Lake, they came in swarms.
We didn't have a hummingbird feeder, so Judy improvised one out of sugar
water, a saucer, and a red Gatorade bottle. It worked. We had hummers
throughout the day. Some kids at a neighboring camp had been there a week
with their feeder, and the hummingbirds were so tame they didn't mind people
at all. We sat right next to the feeder on the picnic table. So tame, we
could hold out a finger in front of the feeder for them to land on. The
weight of a hummingbird standing on your finger? I think you can only
detect it if you can see it.

A fifty mile drive. Not enough for the cat to get used to the motion. He
wandered around and drooled.

We got settled in here. It's a nice park. Paid a little extra and they let
us wash our RV right at our site. As a general rule, that's not allowed.
Got the dust all off it, and the windows clean again. I scrubbed. Judy
rinsed. It's hot and sunny enough, we put the sun screen over the
windshield to help control the temperature inside.

Tomorrow. Back to work.