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Borrego Springs, CA

Sunday, July 25, 2010

Mapping the course of the next two weeks

As I sat outside with Emma this evening, I realized that I had two weeks left at Red Rock before I pull out for new horizons.  Being a planful person, I took a few moments to reflect on what I wanted to accomplish before I leave.  I thought about Yellowstone NP, and the fact that I may never be back to this park again.  It seemed to me that regardless of the crowds, I needed to make a few more trips into this magnificent park.  Where else will I see these massive bison herds and beautiful vistas?  The magnitude of this place just moves me.  So, tomorrow, I’ll be back on the road.  :)

 

Then, I thought about the physical preparations for departure.

IMG_3114 IMG_3115 IMG_3116

Just take a look at the dusty condition of this car!  What a mess.  The road dust is everywhere.  I’ll need to really spend a day cleaning this up, but that won’t happen until I’m sure I won’t be going on any more gravel roads while I’m here.  That last weekend before I leave will be spent doing all the other chores making the rig ship shape for travel.

 

In order to do that, I’ll be needing to take a trip to a relatively large city so I can buy a new air compressor that will handle the 100 lb. PSI that I need in the rig’s tires.  I’ll probably head for Bozeman, Montana, later this week.  It’s about 100 miles from here, but there’s no sales tax up there.  The rig is also pretty dusty from all the high winds and blowing dust here, so I may try to give it a good washing too.  We’ll see about that one.  :)

 

I was out of milk, so I packed up Emma in the car and headed out early this evening to see what I could see.

_MG_3101As I headed out of the campground, there was a nice red-tailed hawk perched at the top of a tree.  Very typical for a red tail.  I’ve read that they can see a mouse moving around a mile away.  Imagine having eye sight like that!

 

Before gassing up the car and getting the milk, I headed for the Island Park Dam to see what might be floating around.

_MG_3106There weren’t any pelicans or Western grebes about, but across the bay was a great blue heron and four sandhill cranes.  They were really pretty far away.  I hear cranes every morning when I take Emma out for her walk, but they are hard to see in the meadows surrounding the campground.  This family of cranes will be heading south before too long.

 

I wanted to give an update on my quest to have comments visible to readers of the blog.  Apparently, they are visible to readers already.  It just amazes me that they are not visible to blog authors.  What in the world is up with that?  So, after eliminating blog owner approval of comments, I have reinstated that feature so I know when there is a comment.  I don’t want to have to keep clicking on ‘view blog’ in order to read any comments.  With the comment moderation in force, I can read the comments and publish them from my Google email account.  It was obvious to me that many other blog authors didn’t know this either.

 

Thanks for stopping by….talk to you later,  Judy

9 comments:

  1. Sounds like you've got a plan! Wish I was right behind you!
    I don't understand all the info about publishing comments from my Google email account but I'm still so new at this I guess I'll learn.
    Give a little squeeze to Emma from me and Bella.
    Blessings, Kathy

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  2. Yellowstone NP is a special place and we can't wait until we can get back there. I know you have enjoyed all the photo ops it presents. Great place!!
    Love the pic of the Red-tailed Hawk..they are so beautiful.
    Yep, that is alot of dust. You will be busy getting things ready to roll.

    Mike & Gerri (happytrails)

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  3. Wished I had the eyesight of that hawk. Some mornings I have trouble just seeing the mouse at the other end of my right arm....:))

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  4. Thanks for rooting us on and your nice comments during our week road trip, we really enjoyed our vacation as did Adam & Rigg's,Hope you are having fun and planning your next destination, just Google Ohio State Parks and the rates are listed there, the rate we paid was for one night at a time , but I think they have weekly and monthly rates. Be safe out there. Sam, & Donna.

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  5. Judy, I hate to possibly add even more confusion to this whole question of leaving comments, but, you can be notified by email of any comments left on your blog even without enabling "blog owner approval". That's the method I use on my blog.

    If you're interested, you can check this out by going to your Blogger Dashboard then clicking 'settings > comments' and scrolling down to the bottom of the page where it says "Comment Notification Email".

    Just put your email address in the box and all comments left on your blog will be emailed to you even as they are being posted on your blog. This way, the poster gets to see that his comment has been published.

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  6. I am not sure I understood your comment correctly but I am only able to view the comments on your blog, or mine, when I click on the comments at the bottom and wait for another window to open. Now there may be a simple answer for why this technological neoanderthal can't just see them after the blog but I haven't stumbled on it yet.

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  7. I get all of my comments as emails, and since we have the email up all of the time, I see new comments when ever I wake up the computer.

    What is the nearest town, and is there a good grocery store there? Someday we WILL get to Yellowstone, and it seems Red Rocks is a good place to be for a big RV.

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  8. Judy:
    I have checked the followers gadget and also the list and made sure that you were not somehow blocked. It says that is open to anyone and that no followers are blocked.

    The only thing I see is a reference to following privately. Could it be that you checked that box on sign up?

    Thanks again for reading my blog.

    Chuck

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  9. Judy - Here's what I figured out through trial and error. The comments are automatically visible below the post if you click on a specific post (either from the archive or the post title); otherwise, if you just open your blog and scroll through your posts, they are collapsed and all you see is the word "comments" and the number of comments.

    I've got my comments set to moderation so I can delete spam before it gets posted. I get the email alert, then either approve the comment from there or come to the blog to moderate them and make them visible to everyone.

    Hope this helps.

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