Lake Hartwell July 29 2012

Hartwell Lake Sunset on the SC/GA Border

It was so nice and cool this morning in the 70's, it felt great to go walking with the doggy. Then we came back and hung out on the patio.  I was working and the dog was playing. We both had our breakfast out here.

Just rambling and recuperating. My computer is acting up seriously. It's old, hot and tired.  I keep making backups. So if you lose contact with me, you will know the puter finally gave it's last gasp. I've done everything to revive it, so hopefully it will try to hang on a little longer for me. A lot longer would suit me just fine.

If it doesn't then well there will be silence here,  until I work out Plan B or C...

We did break camp late yesterday afternoon. I keep getting so organized inside, that I can be ready to roll pretty fast but the heat makes me oh so slow sometimes.

One thing that I just installed in under 2 days was a  quick-connect water hookup  to my RV.

Why has no one ever told me about these marvelous inventions?

My left arm is still floppy some days and useless. So a few weeks ago, after a grocery run, I could not get the water hookup back on again.  My one arm just didn't have the strength and the other arm was protesting.  I've been living off the tank of water the RV has, then refilling my tank every time I am outside. This makes it quicker overall, to refill it a few gallons at a time, rather than waiting until all 30 gallons are gone.

Amazon sent me the quick-connector. You attach one piece to the RV city water inlet, and the other piece to the fresh water hose. Afterwards you connect the two with just a gentle push. When disconnecting you pull on the female side and it disconnects in a nanosecond. No herculean strength involved. It's effing magic!

It took me two days and assorted tools plus Teflon tape, to get both pieces attached in such a way they would not leak. Yippee!

OK laugh. Most folks could do this in 3 minutes. But trying to do it with one arm working and one being cantankerous, well it took me two days of moaning and groaning with assorted tool,  to finally get it on nice and tight.

Yesterday we went to Dollar General with our $5 store coupon. I picked out $25 in groceries and only paid $20 thanks to the coupon Several items were last chance discounted or marked down.  Took doggy for a short walk in the country. Then we went sightseeing down some country roads looking at cows, alpacas, old barns, new houses, double wide trailers, Victorian mansions, old shacks and little cabins. After awhile I turned on the GPS my friends gave me for my birthday.  I told it to take us home and the little lady began giving us directions, as by now we had no idea where we were. It was great to have her figure it all out for us.

The dog is so relieved that he doesn't have to do the navigating anymore.

I am too, because he mostly got us lost, though he can sniff out a campground from at least 2 miles away.

We had tootled off to Tugaloo,  adventured through Avalon, meandered through Martin, journeyed through Stephens, traversed Lavonia then giddy upped back to Gumlog.

I managed to back in nice and neat between all my outdoor accouterments without taking anything out or running over anything. I more or less was lined back up where I wanted to be with my outdoor rug ready to step upon.

It was dark within the hour, but the full moon shown brightly. I checked the moon phase, oddly it says we should have only seen 79% of the moon, but it sure looked full to me.

We also heard a wildcat screaming. When I went to lock up the gate, Harley refused to come with me. That made me a tad nervous, as he seemed afraid of something. I felt like something was watching me too. It was eerie.  And dark.

Later, I could see the late night revelers were rushing down into the park, but I heard the screech of brakes when they discovered the gate was locked. They threw some trash out of their car then sped away. I guess that was their way of making sure I knew they had been here.  Sheeeeesh...

Tonight I locked up the gates while it was still a little light out. Safer that way for me. I have to hike  the park to make sure its empty of vehicles.  They can still park outside the gate and walk in. But it's very dark.

The park ranger told me to do whatever was safest all around to ease the problems around here. Normally we don't lock the gates, but lately we've had  some problems with drunken noisy trash throwing hoodlums at night, so the park is on lockdown at night now.

Funny how people take a good thing and wreck it.

I guess the heat has made a few people a little crazy.

Still scratching my head trying to figure out why anyone wants to come to a gorgeous park to throw their garbage out everywhere. Sometimes will just forever remain a mystery to me.