Fun at Camp Swampy

The morning sun brought a scattering of diamonds to the lake.




Me and the wandering wonder dog headed off on a really long walk this morning. We had a little talk about how good it feels to have such a simple life for this time. The important things in my day today are the walk, answering my email, and finding a good picture or two. For Chorro it was getting a chance to run, so could I please please take the leash off?

We appreciated the changing colors of the leaves.





And got back early enough to find the campground was pretty noisy today.



There is some construction going on in the campground. You cannot see them all, but there were five guys doing this job. After I took this picture, these five guys were joined by three more, so there were seven watching the concrete unload and one guy unloading it. Hmm. Two were watching closely though.

After lunch we both took an unscheduled nap. And that was refreshing enough that we went for another walk. We walked through the woods away from roads so Chorro got his time to run. And run he did, like a little mad man. I guess that would be mad dog. Up the trail and back, I can't believe he doesn't trip over himself. Eventually we came out again at the lake, so he was back in getting his feet wet, in black swamp water. That of course required hosing off when we got back to the RV, which he wasn't too happy about. I should have taken a picture of my little blonde dog with black feet and legs but I was pretty focused on getting it off before it dried.

Here's the late afternoon sun on the lake.

And these are the little root people that grow up from the cypress trees.

You can see here that northern Louisiana apparently has its own aurora borealis seen at sundown.

But as dusk falls, the eeriness returns to the bayou and we head back to the coziness of our little home on wheels.

Tomorrow is a new day.

Camp Swampy

We had a leisurely morning of stowing things for travel and left the campground around noon. I drove in to Homer to try and find the town, since I had apparently missed it on my way here. I was even entertaining thoughts of lunch, but alas, there was simply not much 'town' there.

So on down the road, on our way to Lake D'Arbonne. I took some driving pics of 'Louisiana'. These will show you what northern Louisiana looks like. It is quite wooded, hilly, and very pretty. We met several logging trucks and passed several more Christmas tree farms.

Curving roads, woods on each side. Driving into Neverland.

Autumn is a soft season in this part of the country. The changing colors of the trees are not brilliant or eye-catching, they are subtle and shaded. The leaves that fall are not crackly and crunching underfoot, but, being slightly damp from humidity, swish as you walk through them.

Here's the wrong road to Lake D'Arbonne. I was approaching from the west while my directions described approaching from the east and I am not good at directions anyway, so we explored a little country road for a while.

We arrived here early in the afternoon and again were able to get a campsite by the water.

These cypress trees are no longer alive.

Somewhere on a map or on the internet I saw D'Arbonne referred to as a bayou. It is definitely different than the other lakes we've been to and makes for good photos. I'm looking forward to seeing it in the sunshine. Maybe tomorrow.

We hiked for about an hour or so and between that and having it be a travel day I was tired this evening, thus the late post. But all is well.

Tomorrow is a new day.

Mists on the Lake

We woke up to gray skies this morning, but it's hard to be unhappy about that when even gray skies are so beautiful on a lake.

I spent the morning doing laundry at the campground laundramat. Yes, I passed up the "Laundry Mat" at Walleye the other day thinking I would find a spot in town with a good internet connection, but it didn't happen. I look forward to clean pillowcases tonight! Yes, you appreciate the simple things of life when you live in an RV.

We took off for our hike in the opposite direction today, hoping we would see some wildlife and maybe I'd be lucky enough to get a picture. But you know, sometimes people make good subjects. I couldn't help but chuckle at this little boy who was working very hard to get this fishing thing figured out. Only problem was that the lake was behind him.


We walked to the upper end of the lake and found the colors reflecting in the lake.



And then we found this handsome fellow willing to post for a few shots. I loved the reflections in the water today.



I thought he looked like a swan but I got out the bird book to see if I could say for sure.


He was not alone, but had a mate with him, unless he was a Momma bird and she had a large kiddo with her. His companion was not white, however, but gray. I discovered that the Blue Heron has white phase and there are a couple of white egrets common to this area, the Great Egret and the Snowy Egret. And swans are not common in this area. I'm thinking someone who knows birds may leave a comment to enlighten me (hinting).


The birds were fascinating to watch and try to photo but it started to rain, heavy rain, not just the pleasant mist. So we got our two wet bodies back to the RV where Chorro got a regular rub down with a towel. He wasn't at all sure that was necessary though. I will say that, post PetSmart trip, it was lovely to have a wet dog that didn't smell like wet dog.


There's something about rain that makes me wish I could go back outside and play.



I wonder if my siblings remember our Mother reciting the little nursery rhyme to us: Rain, rain go away, Come back another day, little Dolly wants to play!

So it was time to think of something to do inside the RV. Dene helped me dream up a meal last night that I thought would fill up my little home with delicious smells, so I spent the rest of the afternoon cooking. This is Garlic Roasted Chicken Breast with Roasted Texas Sweet Potato Medallions, Onions, and Green Beans.



It roasted nicely in my electric fry pan and I must say my produce stand sweet potato (it looked like yam to me) was absolutely wonderful. In fact, Chorro volunteered to prewash the pan for me and just finished his job!

Tomorrow will be a travel day as I move on to check out another lake. In the meantime, I'm going to enjoy those sweet clean pillowcases.


Because tomorrow is a new day.

Our Day Off

Chorro and I voted and decided today would be kick-back and relax day. We would try to out-do each other in accomplishing nothing. We did well.

I didn't even take many pictures. Here's the sun reaching our campsite in the morning.

And beautiful Lake Claiborne.

Through the trees.

Here, we actually saw two white tail deer but they were literally "high tailing it" into the woods and I was WAY too slow with my camera. So all I can show you is that they were in the right place, according to the sign.

And dusk falling on our little motorhome.

I have to confess that I missed the best picture of the day. Coming back from our walk, a man working at the picnic table at his campsite to get his little color tv set up -- with huge wings of aluminum foil hanging off the rabbit ears -- but he had a pretty good picture of what I guess was a Very Important Football Game.

Chorro and I settled for a lawn chair and a book at our campsite for me, and soft pine needles to sleep on for him.

And tomorrow is a new day!

Son of a Gun, We'll Have Big Fun on the Bayou!

Goodbye Texas, Hello Loozeeanna!

Getting ready to leave the night before worked well and I was on my way by 7 am. But what's this? White fields? Not snow but frost, lots and lots of frosty fields. Time to head south, I say.

When our country road leading from the campground took us back to civilization, the first thing we found was Lowe's! The only thing I needed from Lowe's was directions to a propane filling station and I got them. We needed to fill our gas tank too, and lucky me, the gas station was right between a produce stand and a goodwill store. From the produce stand I got sweet potatoes, beautiful tomatoes, and a big bag of pecans. From the goodwill store, three new novels for bedtime stories. (I also unloaded a few of my extras there, so that worked well.) Then off to Louisiana via the backroads.

Here are some first impressions of Louisiana:

My first bayou complete with cypress trees. They have the most interesting above-water ball root.


Churches instead of mile markers at each mile along the road. (Well, almost.)



Oil wells. I couldn't fit them all into the picture, but there were eight pumping wells in this one little area. Little pumps, though.



And hey, the food, isn't this what everyone's interested in?

And some surprises. This looked pretty weird at first, until I realized it was a bridge. And yes, the road really does go up into the air. But it comes down on the other side quite nicely.

Finally, under Chorro's careful supervision, we reached the campground. Ho hum, another gorgeous spot beside a lake.



After almost four weeks on the road, I am slowing down and trusting that I don't have to hurry up and get something else done. Whew, that is a relief. Sometime today I noticed that I have time to think again. I got quite involved in thinking about my family and friends, just thinking about you, what's going on in your lives, how you are, how cool it is that you're a part of my life. So if you were going through your day today and had this odd feeling that someone was thinking about you, well, yes, it 'twas I.

And the sun doesn't set over the lake here, but it adds a little color to the sky anyway.



Tomorrow is a new day.

Sunrise, Sunset

On our last day at Lake Cypress Springs it seems fitting to begin with a sunrise picture.

Last night was chilly, and although today was a sunny "shorts" day, our RV never got too warm inside. No fan today. Since we are moving tomorrow, I had two objectives today. Along with some telephone appointments I wanted to get some things done that use electricity. So this morning I shampooed and vacuumed the carpet (this is not a difficult job with 8 square feet of carpet) and this afternoon I fixed some food for travel day tomorrow.

I had some tilapia in my freezer, which is okay, as fish goes, but rather bland. Bland just didn't appeal to me today, soooooo, I decided I would create a Cajun Tilapia Chowder. Something I could let simmer all day.

Into the crockpot I dumped a chopped up green pepper, a can of corn, and a can of diced tomatoes with chilies. My frozen package of tipalia had three fillets in it (it would be important to have no bones in this fish), and I arranged them on top. I spread a chopped onion over the top of them and sprinkled it liberally with Cajun seasoning. (Somewhere along the line I got a jar of 'Cajun seasoning' similar to the 'Mexican seasoning' and Italian seasoning' mixes). Then I poured 1/2 cup of Frank's Hot Sauce over the top. Understand, however, that I like dishes that sizzle! By early evening it smelled so good! I topped it with a little cheese to up the protein a bit and a dollop of yogurt (sour cream would work) to cut the bite from the hot sauce. Mmm.

Our walk today was a simple tour of the campground. We saw that our Blue Heron still watches nearby.

Chorro dipped a toe in the lake.

And a squirrel rudely hollered obscenities at him.

We sat and meditated by the lake for a while.

I was thinking about all the great new little people we have in our family -- Olivia and Bret, Matty and Livy, Isabel Ruth, Abigail and brand new little Joey John. (Not to leave out the fantastic bigger little people, Macky, Oliver, Xavier and Eric, -- and Courtney of course, and well, surely can't skip Becky, Amanda, Jeremy, Tige, Ian, Stacey, Jackie, Jeanne, Kristi and Jim and their respective partners!)

I read something that spoke to my heart today, "Well, the reality of it all is that we are forever young, forever children who are growing, learning, and discovering every day--no matter how many years we have invested in growing up."

Later, I thought I'd get a jump on the being ready to move out in the morning by emptying my holding tanks and filling up with water tonight. So I ran over the sewer hose and crushed the connector when I went to dump and thoroughly drenched myself with water in filling up the water tank. Yep, somewhat like Robin Williams in "RV" if you have seen that. If not, do, and think of me!

It really doesn't matter when a day has an ending like this sunset, my last picture here.

Tomorrow is a new day!

Blue Herons and Acts of Kindness

We moved to a different campsite yesterday, hoping for a better internet connection over here. The internet connection is about the same but the view here includes both sunrise and sunset! How can you beat that. Here's Wednesday morning about 6:30.

We're on the north end of the lake and it curves around a little, so that's what makes the wraparound view possible.

And a few minutes later, this is how it looked.



The toys were in use early this morning. I must say I wouldn't mind putzing around on that little Ford tractor myself!




We decided to walk to the little village of Walleye for our morning stroll, maybe a mile. We found this tree with some enticing fruit -- from a distance I thought they were oranges, but up close I decided they must be persimmons. As you can see, the branches are hanging way over the road, so, yes, I picked one and put it in my pocket, not knowing for sure if they were edible. Turns out to be delicious, pretty mushy though. I saved some to spread on breakfast's English muffin tomorrow.




Well gosh durn we discovered one of them there laundry mats in Walleye! Just when my cleanest dirty shirt is getting pretty grimy.




Walking back to the Park, we noticed a boat garage. Or maybe a car garage when the lake gets really really low.




Back at camp, Chorro and I got the idea that we should do an act of kindness. That's just a little tricky with nobody around, so we settled on cleaning up the campground in our little area. He scouted out things like empty plastic hot dog bags and old dead fish and I picked them up and put them in the trash. We made three major finds. A pair of reading glasses in their case, a tiny little dinosaur, petrified into a hard plastic like substance, and one walleye lure. I know it's a walleye lure because we are at Walleye Park.



So dusk found me sitting by the water, playing the recorder. I glanced up and found I was being watched by yesterday's Blue Heron! After I serenaded her a bit, it seemed like a good time to come back into my RV and play the Jewel CD Jan gave me, in honor of my sister who I know is watching and smiling at my day.

And tomorrow is a new day.