It hard to get on here because Akela is working on his video.  He  tends to take a long time because he can only use one toe(finger?) at a time to type.  Hopefully his video will be finished before we leave for Michigan.

It has been a pretty good summer.  We have been trying to keep the weeds out of my yard. We lost that war. We had some minor repairs on the house. We rebuilt our back deck the way we wanted it originally when I had a contractor rebuild it 2 years ago. We were working on staining and sanding it, but the the weather put an end to that.   It is amazing how it can be drought through all of June and July, then rain everyday through the last week of July and August.  

Rain in this area is different than back home in NY.  A cloud comes over from somewhere, dumps a load of rain, then leaves.  Rain rarely lasts more than an hour.  In NY rain always came from the west(the great lakes) and lasted all day. Weather in this area can come from anywhere, North, West, South, or East!  And of course the worse and heaviest rain and wind comes from Hurricanes that come inland from the south.  Since we are about  200miles from the coast, we don’t get direct hurricane weather.  But we can get a lot of rain. And in the last 3 years we have gotten some small tornadoes around the Piedmont.  But they are small and short lived. Nothing like the midwest “tornado alley” sees.

But the rest and relaxation has given us time to plan our trips for the rest of the year and even into 2025.  We are interested in seeing the west of course, and we thought that might be best initiated by visiting Quartzite, AZ.  If you aren’t aware, Quartzite is the gathering place of roughly 750,000 to 2 million RVers looking to escape the cold in the north.  It has quite a set up to accommodate them and keep the place clean and sanitary.  There are millions of acres of federal land to “free camp” on and even some very cheap federal lands with dump stations and water for those who might need it.  So we are looking forward to taking a leisurely drive out through Texas and New Mexico to get to Quartzite and spending 2 weeks there.

So the video’s posted during the “summer break” should be decent since I had some extra time to work on them. My favorite is the Boondocking/Free Camping in New York(seen here).  But of course the NY state park  Taughannock Falls is also nice, though I wouldn’t want to make that park my vacation destination.  I think it is more a base camp type of campground to stay at so you can day trip to other places in New York. 

But right now, as the week before we leave for Michigan arrives, we are checking wheel bearings, sanitizing water tanks, cleaning the frig and bedding and making sure the solar and systems are all working.  Oh, We did have a slight failure in the solar system.  Renogy sent a new panel to replace the bad one.  Check out that video Here: Repairing and replacing Solar panels.  It really shows the great way I mounted the panels as they are so easy to take off and put back on!

So I guess I will make this post a short one.  Not much going on that isn’t in the videos.  Akela wants you to know he had to go to the vet and was diagnosed to have gotten a tick borne infection for which he is now on Doxycycline for 2 weeks.  He did not like his assigned vet for the visit.  Our regular vet which he loves is nearing retirement and so he has sold his practice to a “Corporate Veterinary Group” who rotates vets around.  And the vet we saw was a bit “Matter of Fact” and dismissive of his complaints.  He was happy to take his shot and gave blood to the vet tech, but growled at the vet continuously! I had to muzzle him and hold him tight for them to touch Akela.  They really had no patient empathy.   Akela also wants you to know he had some very bad irritating sores on his inner thigh and hip that he was trying to get rid of by licking them all the time (Bad).  His Human sprayed them with Lidocaine /  Witch Hazel spray and then rubbed them with Neosporyn and they cleared up nicely.  And lastly he wants you to know you can make a donation to his Taco cheese account by clicking the link above.  He loves to have Taco Cheese on his regular Purina Dog food!! (and his Doxycycline) 

Ok, Enough about him!!  We hope you all are having a great summer.  Hoping everyone is staying safe and healthy. And we hope to see you on the road! 

Rick &Akela
GoingNoWhereFast