A Big Dog in an RV, and Annie's Behind™

Outside a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside a dog, it's too dark to read. ~ Groucho Marx



















Jake is starting to dog it up around here.

Yin and Yang

A stick at tooth level! Thanks, guys!

Jake behind "Life is good" 

 It's April, and that means the tops come off. Sometimes we raise car roofs, too.

Annie's Behind™ the Tracker

I'm outside taking the picture because I SAW the road ahead of time.

After our desert romp, Annie replaced the ripped soft top on the Tracker.

We've been enjoying friends lately. We're sorry Cheryl couldn't stay longer; we blew her off to go get Jake.

In later years, the pair could no longer remember when humans stopped visiting. I seem to remember liking people, Roxi mused, reaching into her pocket for a poop bag.

We enjoyed an afternoon and evening with Hughes and Judy Moir, who threw their very, very busy lives into neutral to spend some hours with us. They're great company - energetic and charismatic - and it's a pleasure to see them whenever we can.

Grace and Steve kindly met us at a park so our pups could meet. These two balls of energy (with a matching dog) are boondockers, too. Steve has retired, and Grace pretends not to mind. They'll be on the road in less than two years.

Strawberry hedgehog in "our" yard

  

My new cousin with serious star power. There's a strong family resemblance; I don't want to talk about it.

What the HECK am I looking at here??

 

Hold us, we're scared!

 

I'm calling this "The End"

Annie's Behind™ - no end in sight.

Annie's Behind™the rocks.

Annie's Behind™the fence at the Blythe Intaglios

"This is an ex-coyote!"

Dental reconstruction.  "I think I see what killed him!"

Two deadly predators.

I've frightened you, so let me show you some bits of beauty to soothe your ravaged nerves.

 

 Annie is suffering with a migraine today, so please, no loud comments.  No brilliant flashes of wit, either; kindly subdue yourselves.

Missed it by THAT MUCH. Annie's Behind™

We meant to pay money to go to the ocean, but instead we didn't.  It was an honest mistake;  we just got to the free ocean first and thought we were there.

It could happen to anyone.

Parking, picnic, and potty: the three P's of ocean fun.  Parking was empty enough that a moderately-sized RV could have parked there, too.  Our moderately-sized RV was a car.

This post has too many photos.  I'm embarrassed.

Water under the natural bridge

I got tingly reading about this park:  a river (the Santa Fe) tumbling along like rivers do, then PLUNGING into a sinkhole to travel underground for three miles before it GUSHES back to the surface and resumes its riverly ways.  I couldn't imagine what that would look like!  Can you?

At great personal danger I recorded this phenomenon for you to enjoy.  You will feel the exact rush of wind and see the current raging in real time, more or less, but exactly as we saw it.

Hold on, Annie!  I'll pull you back from the rushing waters! Grab that Styrofoam cup full of lead.  Notice her hair getting unkempt from the winds.

Lies

This is a beautiful natural area, with lots of wildlife.  When you get to the sinkhole, you'll know only because there's no more river.  If you happen to know which way to go, you can walk three miles and be there when the river re-emerges and continues flowing into the Suwanee.  I think it looks sort of like the sinkhole, but backwards.

Creepy part:  Divers have explored the three miles of underground river.

Interesting part:  we met a man on the trail who told us we had passed alligators on the river rocks!

Can you see it?

We couldn't either, until he pointed it out:

 

Once we knew how to look, we saw them everywhere.

NOW I get it.

The O'Leno (say "oh LEE no") State Park benefited big time from the work of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC).  

 

I hadn't realized they replanted forests and fought wildfires.

Here's Annie, with a cypress slice for scale:

The dot at the middle is the cypress as a seedling when Genghis Khan did notable stuff, like killing Kirk's son.  KHAN!!!  Eight hundred years later, here's Annie.  A lot has happened.

Eat your heart out, Tucker.  We got nuthin' BUT cute.

What're we gonna do today, Brain?

Same thing we do every day, Pinky.  Check the chlorine level, then go back to bed.

The pool has been closed for about 10 days;  my son calls this 'a first-world problem.'  I think it's my step-father's passive-aggression toward long-term driveway parkers.   Did I put a lethal amount of chlorine in the pool ... again?  It's been a good thing, though, because it has forced us off the property and into outlaw territory.

Me.  Yesterday.  Denny's.  Ordering off the senior menu.  HAHA!  They didn't even card me.  Suckers!

Annie.  Yesterday.  Crescent Beach.  Urging us toward the water even while the lifeguard was clearing the beach.  HAHA!  He didn't even ... LIGHTNING!  RUN!!!

Annie's Behind ... the camera

My father's "estate" took us into St. Augustine to sign papers.  I should have taken him along to sit on the conference table - that would have been hilarious.  I'm kicking myself now.

We tried to go to Anastasia State Park.  The ranger took our money, but warned us the lifeguard was clearing the beach, so Annie stuck her hand out and took our $8 back.

Annie has two water projects:  keeping it in, and keeping it out.  Then there's the Duck.