rvsue and her canine crew

Taxes are done!

I use TurboTax’s free federal tax form to file.  It’s an easy process, but I procrastinate anyway, every year.  This year I pay $96 in taxes due to my teacher retirement plan.

Every day the crew and I explore a different area around our campsite.

I’m always on the look-out for interesting plants.  This high desert doesn’t offer a lot of plant variety.  You have to look closely.

Bridget and Spike know to stand still while I take close-up photos.  I wonder what this bud will look like in a few weeks.

We walk past the San Dominique Winery . . .

. . . which is also a garlic paradise?  The interstate is not far from our camp.

Rusty and Timber come over and sit a spell.

Well, Rusty sits with me and Timber trots around on his tether.

Bridget continues to snarl at Timber.

Spike and Timber resume diplomatic relations, finally negotiating a peace treaty in the canine manner.  It goes like this . . .   Earlier, when Timber was inside his camper, Spike went over and pooped under their tree. Today Timber accepts Spike’s peace proposal and reciprocates by depositing a poop at our campsite.

The treaty is official!

Later, as I’m slogging through TurboTaxLand, Spike goes over to Rusty and Timber’s campsite.  I don’t notice his absence.  Finally I push the electronic send button for the taxes and return to planet Earth.

“Hey, where’d Spike go?”   Bridget gives me her I-dunno face.

I look around outside and there’s Spike over at Timber’s site, hopping around, playing with Timber!  It’s almost dark.

Spike sees me looking at him and immediately torpedoes his way home.

He zips right by me and sails through the open door of the BLT.  I have to laugh.  Spike runs like he’s shot from guns when he’s happy.  I follow him inside.  There he sits on the bed, ready to turn in for the night like a good boy.

He gives me the cutest face with bright eyes before settling into the covers. (This is an old photo, one of the few that captures his happy, impish look.) In about a minute he’s snoring.  What a guy! 

Bridget, who never left her station on the bed, looks at me as if to say, “What was that all about?”

On a totally unrelated subject . . .

I love bread in all its glorious forms:  crusty French bread, greasy biscuits, pita bread, tortillas (warm or cold), good ol’ American sliced white bread, even when it’s been flattened by a careless grocery clerk, bagels of any variety, crunchy croutons, dumplings bobbing in chicken broth, pumpernickel, real sourdough that gives me a rash, tender dinner rolls, English muffins with marmalade, banana nut bread so moist it has wet spots in it, homemade whole wheat bread heavy as a concrete block, and, oh my, cinnamon raisin bread . . .

I love it all, but I don’t eat it anymore because it slaps on the pounds.

Most of all, I love rye bread.  I love it when it’s holding together hard salami slices and raw onions dabbed with horseradish mustard.  I love it with cheese melted on top.  I even love it with peanut butter.  Most of all, I love it when it’s toasted and buttered with each bite dipped in a mug of hot, fresh-brewed coffee.

Oh, I’ve missed it so.

At times I’ve thought . . .  If a person should walk by this camp holding a slice of buttered rye toast while I’m drinking my morning coffee, I swear I’ll pick up my camp chair, knock him to the ground, and wrestle it right out of his hand. 

Even if I buy a loaf of rye, I have no way to toast it.

Until NOW!  While at Many Trails RV yesterday, I bought a contraption for toasting over a stove.  (An electric toaster draws too much power.)

This clever item can be found on the Shopping Links page, “For the road and campsite.”

I know, three slices is a lot. . . but it makes the coffee taste so good and I did share it with the crew!

rvsue