Neotoma cinerea

Suprisingly (at least to us), we were once again visited by a Neotoma cinerea aka Bushy Tailed Wood-rat aka Pack Rat. Albeit this time it was a somewhat pleasant & amusing encounter. We were sitting in the Cardinal last evening about 8:00 p.m. with the door open including the screen as there are no misquotes or flies to worry about. Teddy was working on a jigsaw puzzle and I was in the midst of the daily newspaper crossword when out of my peripheral vision I saw a little furry animal scamper into the door. I yelped at Teddy, "What was that!". She turned just in time to see him turn around and hightail it back out of the door. We chuckled in amazement & thought that that was the end of it, but to our amazement he/she popped in and out three more times in the next ten minutes as we sat quietly and watched. At that point I fetched my camera but as is always the case when you are ready with camera in hand, he didn't appear again. They are cute little animals but can be quite destructive with their nest building activities so we aren't going to invite him back again. Needless to say, we closed the door before retiring.

Lake Havasu City

We arrived at Havasu Falls RV Resort in Lake Havasu City, AZ Tuesday afternoon about 4:00PM. http://www.havasufallsrvresort.com/
Drove about an hour through a snow storm south of Salt Lake. There appeared to be about five inches on the ground near where I-70 ends at I-15. It wasn't a lot of fun but at least I didn't get sleepy driving! Anyway we were happy to get here with mid 70s temps. and hugs from friends that we met last year here. (Snowbirds are starting to arrive)

Pack Rat Woes

Last Friday I went out to start the truck and oops! the batteries were dead. So I got out my trusty battery charger and opened the hood. And...what did I find...a nicely built pack rat's nest stuck down in the engine compartment made with insulation material from the firewall, insulation from a wire and lined with cacti, ouch! I pulled the nest out, wraped the wire with black tape and charged the battery. Then I borrowed an animal trap from one of the rangers, baited it with a piece of shiny tin foil and caught this little fellow the next morning. We were going to Vernal, UT the next day so now he is a resident of Utah. I released him at a rest stop in Utah about 20 miles from here. Here is his picture.Pack Rat aka Bushytail Woodrat (Neotoma cinerea).

We're still here!

We are staying another two weeks here at Dinosaur Monument. Will be leaving Oct. 16 and will probably wander around the southwest and finally end up in Lake Havasu City by Nov. 1 at the latest. Dinosaur Monument is truly a very special place. The park encompasses over 210,000 acres and the dinosaur aspect is a very small part of what the park has to offer. On the Colorado side where we are, there are astounding canyon views and on roads into the interior of the park some of which take a 4 wheel drive vehicle on descents into beautiful valleys.
Here is a pict. that I took last week of a feature called "Split Mountain".Split Mountain"

Dinosaur Update

What a wonderful place Dinosaur Monument is. We are continuously awed by the beautiful mountain scenery. The only drawback is the remoteness. In order to get on-line we have to drive 40 miles here to Vernal, UT. Our days off are Sat., Sun., Mon. and we generally make the trip every weekend. Diesel fuel has come down to 2.99 from 3.45 when we first arrived so that helps some.Here is Teddy pointing out some of the topographical features of the park to some visitors. They have asked us to stay on into October so we might stay an extra week depending on the weather. If it turns to freezing conditions for very long though, we are out of here as I don't want to damage the water lines in the Cardinal. We had our first snow yesterday as you can see from this picture but it has now melted off except for the mountain tops.



...and here is a pict that Teddy took of ice on a cactus.





.

News from Dinosaur

We are into our second week working at the Dinosaur Visitors center. Our hours are 8:30am to 4:30 pm Tue thru Fri. We can split our time any way we wish. right now, Teddy goes in at 8:30 and I relieve her at 12:30. We greet the visitors, answer questions, tell them about the geological features of the park, and show a short 12 minute film if they swo desire. Day b y day we are getting better at it.Here's Teddy hard at work.
On our days off last weekend we drove around the interior of the park park. Here are five of the hundred or so picts that we took.





































































.

Where have we been for the past two weeks???

Today is Saturday 9/2/06
We have been traveling for the past couple of weeks so had no opportunity to update.
Here is a recap of where we have been and where we are now.

On August 17 we left Leelanau County and headed down to Manistee, MI to attend Larry’s 50th High School Anniversary. We parked in a nice park at the Casino and were joined in the park by two other classmates. Jerry Ayres and his wife camped there too as well as Fay Murphy and her friend. Jerry had made arrangements with the casino to reserve the parks shelter house for a Friday night buffet; over one hundred classmates and spouses from the MHS class of ’56 showed up. Then on the following evening, Saturday the 19th, we had a social gathering ending with a sit-down dinner at the Manistee Country Club.
It was great renewing old friendships, however I did make the remark though that “It seemed to me that I was the only one in my class to attend, everyone else having sent their parents”. But I guess that everyone else thought the same thing, especially when they last saw me in HS, I probably weighed only about 135 lbs.

On Sunday we pulled out and headed for Wisconsin and after spending the night in the Wal-Mart parking lot in Petosky, we again stopped for a visit with our RV friends Dan & Pat Martenson in Escanaba. We had a great time and stayed up until after midnight playing Mexican Train.

Monday we continued on to Appleton where we had an appointment at Appleton Camping for some minor warranty repairs scheduled for Tuesday morning. We spent 5 days in Appleton getting our RV repairs done, doing laundry, getting the truck serviced and visiting Mike & Toni. Had lunch w/Becky & Tony and were invited for dinner on two consecutive nights at the Welhouses and the Orrs.
Saturday afternoon we had our "Blessed Event" of watching our Monarch butterfly emerge from his chrysalis.
She spent about 20 minutes drying out and then we released her outdoors, so once again we are "empty nesters".

Sunday the 27 found us heading west as we had to be at Dinosaur Monument in NW Colorado by September 1 to begin our month long stint as volunteers working in the Visitors Center.
We arrived Thursday afternoon the 31st crossing Wisconsin, Minnesota, South Dakota, and Wyoming to get here.





At the Corn Palace in Mitchell, SD Teddy met up with this guy, but lucky for me, it didn't work out.











Our boss, Sue Walter has spent the last two two days training us and taking us on an extensive tour of the park. It is spectacular with awe inspiring views. I will tell more about the park in subsiquent blogs.
Right now Teddy and I are in the public library in Vernal, Utah. About 35 miles west of Dinosaur on Rt. 40. This is the closest place that I can get on-line so probably won't be on line more than once a week. :-(.

Monarch Chrysalis

Teddy bought home a Monarch caterpillar yesterday and put it in a jar w/some milkweed leaves. We then went out for dinner and when we returned it was gone. However this morning we discovered this chrysalis firmly attached to the end of our kitchen counter. Sooo...now we just have to wait about ten days for the metamorphosing.

The Chameleon House

We found this "Extreme Home" named "The Chameleon House" located in here Leelanau County approximately 3 miles south of Northport on M-22.
Apparently it was featured in "Home & Garden" TV
I lifted this quote from the architect's web site at www.andersonanderson.com/WebsiteAAA/CHAMELEON.htm#
"This house is a tower rising above the rolling topography of its cherry orchard site, peering outwards toward spectacular westward views of Lake Michigan and the surrounding agricultural landscape. The site is left minimally disturbed, other than the mounding of two earthen enclosures adjacent to the tower, utilizing the excavated earth of the foundation and offering a ground bound contrast to the tower experience above the treescape.
A house would appear as an unsympathetic intrusion in this pure landscape, and with its singular vertical presence rising above the orchard, the tower is intended to reflect the austere, scaleless non-particularity of the occasional farm buildings dotted elsewhere on the hills. To help mask the scale and house program window requirements of the structure, the building is wrapped in a skirting wall of recycled translucent polyethylene slats, standing two feet out from the galvanized sheet metal cladding of the wall surface, on aluminum frames that serve also as window washing platforms and emergency exit structures. The translucent polyethylene material set out over the dully reflective wall cladding is chosen for its ability to gather the light and color of its landscape, dissolving the finely shadowed and inexplicably haloed structure into the seasonal color cycle of snow and ice and black twig tracery; pale pink blossom clouds; pollen green leaf and grass; golden straw and vivid foliage,"

Schools

As a young lad from Kindergarden through 3rd grade I attended two different small country one room schools near Shelby, MI. Yesterday Teddy & I drove around the local area and photographed three such schools here in Leelanau County.


Shetland School on M-22 near Good Harbor. Now converted to a private residence.







Solon School SE of Cedar on Hoxie Road. Now vacant.









Standard School in the village of Cedar. Now converted to a private residence.



...and finally, here is a school photo that I really like which Teddy captured last summer in southern Illinois.

Grandma's Party

Last Saturday evening we all took Teddy's Mom out to celebrate her 90th birthday.Clockwise arounf the table are Johanna, Denise, Teddy, Mom (Pearle), Deborah, Jason, Freddy, Fred, & John. That's my steak in the forground; I'm missing because I was taking the picture.

Cedar, MI 49621

I stopped in at Bunting's Market in Cedar last Sunday to buy some of their smoked, natural casing hot-dogs. They smoke them fresh every Sunday and are they ever good! I told Teddy that when I am in Bunting's I feel as if I am in a movie...you know, one of those feel-good movies about summer residents in a small resort town by the ocean (in this case Lake Michigan).
As I was leaving town I snapped these pics of "Victoria Creek" which runs through the edge town.Looking upstream at Victoria Creek in Cedar, Michigan.Looking downstream at Victoria Creek in Cedar, Michigan.

M-72 West Self Storage & U-HAUL

Teddy's sister Deborah and her husband, Dr. Fred Lawrence, in addition to their medical clinic also own and operate this self storage facility. They have hired Teddy to help with the annual blacktop sealing on the roads around the buildings.
Here are the three of them hard at work laying down the sealer. Over the last couple of weeks they have already put in about 20 hours of work and are only about half done.
L to R: Teddy, Deb, Fred

Settling in!

We have been busy settling into our new Cardinal...putting up shelves, adding cup hooks, hanging pictures, wiring electronics, etc.
Here are some interior shots of our new home.

Looking toward the bedroom from the living room.
Looking toward the kitchen from the living room.
Looking toward the living room from the bedroom hall.

Larry turns 69

Although we had to cancel our planned week of camping at Calumet County Park on Lake Winnebago, we did have our traditional 4th of July picnic/outing there.





We arrived around noon. Greg & Sue, Dick & Jen, and Mike & Toni soon setup the lawn chairs & grills and started grilling.




I, of course just sat and watched because after all...it was my birthday.




Dick really impressed Mike with his monster burger.










As usual, some went on the hike up the ski hill. Here are Dick & Jen resting at the top.





While they were hiking, Greg tooled around the park on my Segway




Later in the afternoon, Wes joined us from Green Bay.












We reluctantly packed up and headed back to Appleton around 7 pm...all in all, it was a real good day.

New Bird

There’s a new bird in town! While we were waiting for the parts to repair our 5th Avenue trailer, Appleton Camping made us an offer that we could not refuse and we ended up trading it in for a brand new 2006 Cardinal model 34TS fifth wheel. We left Appleton on our first trip with our new home on Tuesday July 11 and headed for the Whispering Pines summer reunion in Xenia, Ohio. On the way we stopped for two nights in South Bend, Indiana and visited our friends Lee & Luella Chizum. They live only about 15 miles from Forest River Inc. where the Cardinal is made so on Wednesday afternoon we drove over for a factory tour. We had an over two hour personal tour with a factory rep. and were very impressed with the quality of construction.
Wednesday evening we visited with friends Huston & Carolyn Mitchell who also live in South Bend and then bright and early Thursday morning we continued on to the reunion in Xenia, Ohio. We love our new “bird” and, knock on wood, have had no problems

Cecropia Moth

While I was fueling up the truck one day last week, Teddy, as she often does, was out wandering in a nearby field and discovered this adult female Cecropia moth. They do not live long (about two weeks) because the adult cecropia cannot eat. The purpose of the adult stage is to mate and lay eggs. She wasn't very active and was probably near death, having already laid her eggs.
With a wingspan of 5 to 6 inches, the cecropia moth (Hyalophora cecropia) is the largest North American moth. It is a member of the family Saturniidae. Cecropia moths are referred to as silkworm moths.
Although these moths are common throughout North America, you don't often see them because they fly only at night. However, because a cecropia moth is colorful as well as large, when you do see one for the first time you will remember it forever!
Like most moths, they are attracted to bright lights. This is where most people encounter them for the first time.

Whazzsup...July 4th...etc.

We are now in Appleton, WI and parked behind the maintenance shop at The Appleton Camping Center on McCarthy Road while they do some needed repairs on our living room slide mechanism. Kudos to Tammy, Jason and Tim here at Appleton Camping, although we did not purchase our trailer here, the service here at Appleton Camping has been outstanding. It is refreshing to find an RV dealer that is not only interested in a sale but will also go out of their way to accommodate their customer’s service needs. They are having trouble getting the necessary parts to repair the slide but have supplied AC power to us and said that we can live in our unit right here on site until the repairs are done.
Starting Monday July 3rd we have reservations for a week at Calumet County Park on Lake Winnebago, site #6. However we might not make it as the slide repair takes precedence. But we will, of course, be there hosting our traditional 4th of July picnic on Tuesday, with or without our trailer…hope to see all of our friends and family there.

Cherrys

The cherries in Leelanau county are starting to turn and soon the orchards will be full of the sounds of cherry shakers and fork lifts.Just a month ago when we arrived here the orchards looked like this.
Teddy's brother, John Schlueter, is hard at work getting ready to start shaking his orchards in the next couple of weeks. Last year John shook over one million pounds of cherries and in a good year may harvest a million and a half pounds. However a late frost damaged approximately 50% of this year's crop so this is not going to be a banner year. In farming, just as in casino gambling, sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. The hope is, that the winnings will cover the losses with something left over for profit.

Mr. Ruby-throat

Finally got a picture of the male hummer that has been frequenting our feeders.

Click here for our "New Photo site"

Ruby-throated Hummingbirds

When we arrived here last month Teddy hung this hummingbird feeder outside a window. It wasn't long before a pair of Ruby-throated Hummers became regular visitors, feeding several times a day from the feeder. The Ruby-throated Hummingbird is the only kind of hummingbird that summers in Michigan so it was fairly easy to identify them.
They would dart around, coming and going so quickly that it was difficult to get a good photo of them but I finally managed to get this picture of the female.

Freddy's Party

Our nephew Freddy Lawrence (Teddy's sister Debby's son) had a party yesterday (Sunday June 18) to celebrate his High School graduation from Roscommon High School. Freddy graduated with honors and will be attending Central Michigan University in Mount Pleasant this fall.