Dahlias (2016 trip)

(+2 insets) (looks best at full size on black!) (And please forgive me for the length of this entry, I had nothing to do for hours!) I planned to get up at about 7:15am this morning, but just as Pumpkin and I were beginning our morning conversation of happy chortling and contact calls, the house power flickered. This caused several devices around the room to beep in surprise and more importantly, the overhead lights automatically turned on. BLASTING RAYS FROM A THOUSAND SUNS BURNED THROUGH MY EYELIDS. Inside my head I screamed, "OMG MAKE IT STOP!!" The power went off. The lights went out and I relaxed in utter relief. A few seconds later, the power flickered again, the overheads went on and devices beeped at me. Pumpkin gronked at the unfamiliar sounds. I shielded my eyes with a hand and grumbled about the stupidity of lights that automatically turn on with power fluctuations. After going on and off for a moment, the power officially died. That's when our bedroom UPS* decided to speak up *(uninterruptable power supply). It's hooked up to our tv and dvd player. Yelling at me in loud, plaintive beeps in series of three, it screamed, "I don't have enough power to keep running these devices!" And that, quite frankly, made me very annoyed. How can a UPS which is less than a year old, no longer holding a charge in its battery? "BEEEEP-BEEEEEP-BEEEEEP!!!" I lay there in bed, mentally glaring at the stupid UPS. We have more problems with those dumb things. In the game room--which is down the hall, around the corner, down the short hall and hang a left into the room—I could hear another trio of bleating beeps...make that two pairs of triple beeps...both of our computers are plugged into their own UPS, and they were loudly objecting to the loss of power too. Soon Steve had the UPS's in the game room turned off along with the computers. We decided to go back to sleep for a while in hopes that the power would be back on soon. Thoughts of no espresso had us drifting away like innocent babes. Not that the feathered alarm clock cared. Pumpkin peeped at me every 15 minutes for the next hour until I really couldn't pretend to sleep anymore. Thankfully our hot water heater is large so I had a lovely shower and Pumpkin didn't seeme to mind the dim room, lit only by the light coming through the blinds in the bathroom. Once downstairs I realized that I neglected to cut up Pumpkin's veggies and fruits yesterday so I busied myself with that task while getting Molly's breakfast ready. Soon Pumpkin was set up in her day cage, the room bright with light coming in through the many windows. Steve readied our little generator with four intentions: power to our Monitor heater, to Pumpkin's floor heater near her cage, to the music ipod so Pumpkin has her Sarah Brightman/Annie Lennox playlist to listen to, and of course to the espresso machine! I went out on my walk and when I got back, Pumpkin was comfortable and rockin' out to her tunes, the house was warming up and the espresso machine was ready to go! HUZZAH! As I sit here typing away on my laptop, the power is supposed to be back on within ten minutes but who knows? We've got our fingers crossed! Can you see my glowering face as I stare daggers at the time on my laptop? 12:25. The power was supposed to be back on at 11. We did get a call from the power company saying that the updated approximation was 12:30. *drums fingers on the arm chair* Steve is off to get our two propane tanks filled. We had the brilliant idea to cook breakfast in our new RV! GREAT PLAN!! We busied ourselves with the gathering of 4 eggies, bacon, seasoning, a pan, plates and utensils and marched over to our "home away from home". Steve was hoping that there would be enough propane to cook our food but alas...though he got it fired up, the flame soon dimmed and spluttered out. He checked the propane. Yep. Empty. Well, it was a fine idea. We marched back over to the house, Steve gathered the propane containers and headed out to the local gas station. We need the tanks filled anyway, and his hope is that by the time he returns the power will be back on. He's back, it's 12:36 and nope...no power yet. *sigh* On top of that, there was no power at the gas station or anywhere for many miles in all directions. Thus, he wasn't able to get any propane either! ARGH! Well, at about 2pm we finally got our power back…what an ordeal! :D After all of the fuss of the day, I think it would be very nice to post a picture of a beautiful flower to look at. I ask you: what's better than sharing another dahlia from San Francisco's Conservatory of Flower dahlia exhibit? The only problem is choosing which to post…they all yell and scream for attention, the high-falutin' divas! Well, since they wouldn't stop jumping up and down, I picked the first one in my finished folder: she with the ever-so-fancy hair and amazing graduated colors of yellow, peach and orange. Totally outrageous beauty! Along with that picture I'm including two more: one of them is a group of breathtaking peachy-orange dahlias who are all trying to shove in front of each other to get a better position in front of my camera…CALM DOWN LADIES! You're ALL beautiful! The other picture is a rear view of a glowing, hot pink dahlia who's much too lovely to be bothered with the lime light! (I cannot help but assign personas to these flowers, they have so much pomp and character!) Pam, do you have any favorite flowers other than your beloved Snow Drops? I would understand if you can't choose one, since well, that's how I feel too…but I am curious if you do! I went to your photo stream and picked out a picture that made my heart swoon…and I fell upon your ridiculously gorgeous collage of bearded iris! I remember seeing that picture years ago and I was so smitten by the colors of your flowers that I put them in order of favorite so I had an excuse to stare at them and decide which I liked better. They are truly incredible! Here's hoping that you guys are doing well and that your heart is soaring on the warm winds of affection I am sending your way! *BIG HUGGGSSSS*!!! Explored on 3/13/19, highest placement, #1.

(+4 insets!) (please enlarge!) (I hope you don't mind the excessive length of my posts, it's necessary to document the very beginnings of our unfolding RV trip!) Once again, busy, busy, busy! So many things to do lately it’s got Steve and me running all day! We had another RV dinner and sleepover last night and it was great! We cooked our dinner from start to finish there and the evening’s fare consisted of pan-fried steel-head trout topped with sautéed mushrooms and onions drizzled with a chili/soy sauce…YUM! The side was a repeat of yesterday's mushrooms, onions and asparagus stir-fried in butter...NOM! Needless to say, everything turned out perfectly! (By the way, Jenny wondered about our cold storage—we have a refrigerator topped with a freezer, roomy enough that hopefully we’ll be able to fend for ourselves for at least a week or so without needing to restock.) I mentioned yesterday that I needed to add our memory foam topper to my bed and that was the perfect solution! The hip I sleep on most is still tender but I’m now comfortable and it will get better in the next few days. What a wonderful night’s sleep I had! With all of the ferrying of items back and forth from our house to our RV I neglected to bring Pumpkin’s breakfast over last night. Since I wanted to wash my hair this morning and didn’t want to risk a cold-water catastrophe, I took Pumpkin over to the house with me and I showered there, returning to the RV with Pumpkin and her food. All of us enjoyed a very nice morning relaxing in the RV. I had a little time to do just a bit of commenting yesterday afternoon and this morning which was very nice. I do look forward to catching up as I can! We have been keeping an eye on the levels of our “grey” and “black” tanks and today we saw that our grey tank was registering full. A grey tank holds normal water flow from the kitchen and bathroom sink and fills up much faster than the black tank (toilet). In the next couple of days we’ll take the RV to one of the many places that provide grey and black tank dumping. In the time being, our overnight stays will be curtailed since we can no longer use our sinks. We will appreciate a break...we didn't actually plan on more than one night initially but realized it was a really smart thing to do. So we'll take a break but when the tanks are emptied we'll continue fine-tuning our RV camping! :) On another subject, today we went out and got a new phone and data plan for me. One of the things that’s very important when RV’ing is having unlimited data if at all possible. This allows internet usage without any concerns about running out of a set data amount for that month. The warehouse store we love, Costco, had a special deal that costs only $25/mo for new customers, and it was just too good to pass up. The only drawback is that I won't be able to tether my phone to a computer, but we have a solution for that too. Steve found an excellent deal which does include tethering to computers so we are now set when it comes to getting internet coverage! (Tethering means connecting your computer to your phone's internet data.) We’ve wondered how we would handle this important issue and it was wonderful to have the best deal we’ve seen drop right into our laps. The truth of the matter is that unlimited data plans used to be $100/mo at the very low end ($150-200/mo was common), and people actually sold their plans online or grandfathered them to family members because they were so rare and valuable. After all of our errands, I’m home fairly late so again my time is short…I haven’t processed many pictures in the past week but happily we will have a break from our RV overnight testing for a few days and things should settle down for a while! Oh! New birdies at the feeder today! I looked out and was delighted to find a pair of House Finches happily gobbling up millet! I giggled as I watched them through our binoculars--it’s pretty hilarious to see them with open beakies as they work on breaking the husks of the seeds! They were pretty happy about the treasure trove in front of them though and they stayed for a good ten minutes chowing down! :) It sure is nice to see those lovely birds back here. I’ve included an inset for you to see! :) Today I’m sharing another knockout from the dahlia exhibit that Steve and I visited a couple of years ago when visiting my dad in San Francisco. I have so many pictures to show but they all must take their turn! :D I've added three insets of other red dahlias I photographed there on my first visit there in 2011. Aren't they just a bunch of divas?! :) Pam, I wanted to find another travel picture of yours and found a beautiful image of Glastonbury Abbey Fish Pond with an absolutely gorgeous reflection of the cloud-filled sky and lined with lovely silhouetted trees. MAGICAL! Hoping all is well for you my dear, you are in my thoughts! *BIG HUGS* Explored on 4/4/19, highest placement, #2.

This stunner of a dahlia was one of the beauties that Steve and I photographed at the Dahlia exhibit in San Francisco's Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park. We visited one day when we were staying at my dad's place and took some time for a photo break. I have another dozen pictures I've processed from that trip and I know there are probably 50-75 other pictures that I could process as well. It just blows my mind how incredibly beautiful these flowers are! I wanted to let everyone know that Steve and I are doing just great! In fact, when Steve went to Costco a couple of weeks back, the store was almost perfectly stocked and we were able to get one huge pack of toilet paper and paper towels to top us off. We didn't need more than that but it was nice to get it. No sanitizer but we don't really need it anyway. All is well! We're having a great time immersing ourselves in games but also, the weather is so lovely that Steve went for a bike ride yesterday and I'll follow suit today! :) I have my morning walks every day but it's nice to go out later for a change of scenery. Oregon continues to show very low numbers compared to California to the south and Washington to the north...we are both convinced that the low number is because Oregon hasn't been testing very many people. In any event, Steve and I view the populous as infected just to be safe. Steve shops only once every two weeks or so, and is out as little as possible. It does look like things may finally be slowing down in the rate of infections...it feels a lot more positive in the past few days to me, but maybe Spring Fever has infected me and filled me with positive vibes! In any event, I'm definitely feeling a lot better lately! Let's hope things continue improving in a upward spiral! :) *** Pam, I picture you and your husband living in your little fortress, just like we are! I'm really glad that Corona hasn't swept over the world and taken everyone out like the media suggested it would. Bad enough that so many have died...the horror of everything that's happened is too hard to look at but let's cross our fingers that things may actually be getting better! * Thinking of you with many hugs! * Explored on 4/15/20; highest placement #1.

A New Year and a New Ipernity, and Oh, What a Day… I've really missed ipernity. Even though we could comment and move our pictures around in chronological order, It just wasn't the same without being able to upload pictures. So I mostly stayed away the entire time it's been unable to update its database. I thought I had a handle on the effects of Covid on the world. In fact, getting out to go camping for an amazing three months did wonders for both of us! But then the virus went spiraling out of control, numbers skyrocketed, people became more horrible than ever and I'm right back in the depths of a very gloomy depression. Add to that the simply incredible US election year. I loathe politics. I detest Trump even more. To have this spoiled, uncivilized brat rousted from his undeserved seat of power was a beam of golden light. But of course it tripped his switch of complete and utter insanity, followed by unfathomable chaos and then an attempt to kick off a civil war…this could not actually be happening, right? What seemed like it must be some stupid Lifetime movie was actual reality, where people were getting killed and outrages were unfolding everywhere. Yesterday I discovered that ipernity was back online in regards to uploading pictures and I was overjoyed to see this! But with everything going on in the news, and wrestling with my doldrums, I just couldn't get it together to upload anything. I am posting this outrageously colorful dahlia today (photographed at San Francisco's Conservatory of Flowers ) to express the fireworks of joy that I'm feeling to have our ipernity back! It symbolizes the happiness I feel about today's second impeachment of the Great Embarrassment of the US, and as a shining beacon for a better, happier year ahead. The vaccines are rolling out, a new day dawns before us and things are going to get better! WELCOME BACK IPERNITY! Here's to healing for all of us! Explored on 1/13/21; highest placement #2.

Hooray for the United States!! We are finally out from under four insufferable years and finally have an ACTUAL PRESIDENT!! It's amazing!! Steve and I were so happy all day we hardly knew what to do with ourselves! We celebrated with pancakes for breakfast and steak for dinner and even the weather celebrated by being brilliantly sunny and wonderful! Both of us went on walks and Steve took Pumpkin in her travel front-pack cage and she sang her little heart out with joy! Starlink Sends a Green Light! Just to make everything even better, we got an email yesterday inviting us to join Starlink's beta program!! Steve signed up to the waiting list on the first day the beta was announced back in October and we crossed our fingers. As time passed and coverage expanded, we whimpered and hoped that maybe we'd get into their program. What is YOUR download speed? Apparently the "normal" speed for people is 100mbs. We get 1.5mbs. But hey, it's better than when we moved here, 15 year ago, when it was .5mbs. Living in rural southern Oregon has its upside--it's gorgeous and next to wilderness but we pay the price in an utterly miserable connection to the internet. Wearing a Hole in the Carpet While We Wait! It will take anywhere between two and four weeks before we get our kit. Until then, I'm just going to forget about it. Well, I'm going to try, anyway. Immediately I'm having a hard time with the glaringly slow page-loads. It's hard to continue ignoring all the things we miss out on because our internet speed is too slow. Can't watch YouTube videos without a long wait. Can't enjoy animated gifs. Can't play silly online games that require a good connection. Streaming tv shows and movies? HAHAHAHAHAHAH…um, no. Well, let's hope it's closer to 14 days and not 30!! Today's Picture It's another outrageous dahlia blossom to show my feelings about turning the page to a bright new future for the US and for us too! :D (This dahlia was photographed at the Conservatory of Flowers in San Francisco back in 2016) Please stay safe and enjoy your day! Explored on 1/21/21; highest placement #8.