Pictures for Pam, Day 145: Heart of a White-Spotted Red Dahlia

(+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.