Winding Down

We have been here at Lathrop State Park since late May and now we have only one more weekend to work. We will be leaving just after Labor Day. We will miss our great site. We have great views, privacy, quiet.



We will miss our cute cottontail rabbits.



And the hungry humming birds.



And certainly the deer in the yard.



We won't miss checking for mice every morning.



Or goat heads. They are the seeds of a nasty plant that grows around our trailer here. These wicked seeds look like pictures I have seen of kidney stones, but smaller. They stick on the bottom of our shoes, then we track them inside. If we forget to clean them up, we find them with our bare feet later. That is no fun.

We won't miss the constant threat of hungry bears. For the past few weeks, that has meant I am afraid to go outside after dark, even to get in our basement. I am putting smelly garbage from dinner into the freezer until we can take it to the trash the next morning. We love seeing bears when they aren't too hungry and they aren't too close to our home. We don't want to encounter them looking for food right here.

When we are parked in one spot for quite a while, there is always a lot of stuff to put away before we can drive down the road. We have started by putting away stained glass pieces we hang in the windows and John's carved figures that sit on the desk.



There are outdoor mats, the BBQ grill and stand, wheel covers and chairs to put away. And the basement to re-organize. We have three days off this week and next Tuesday to get this done, so it won't be that hard. But we are getting anxious to move on, to take a few months off from volunteering. It is time for a change of pace.