August 2, 2017 Is it deja vu for Rudy?

August 2, 2017

It was a long day.  My humans kept me in the little house that moves for what seems like years.  And once I got into the big house, it was so hot.  So, I slept.

The air conditioner stayed on all night long, thankfully.  I even had to cover up a bit with a blanket.  This morning, it was 70 in Hannah, and 91 outside at 6 am.  I did a morning walk before the sun got too high.  It was already warm, but the monsoonal clouds kept it comfortable for walking.  I even found an Elks club, but no RV parking.  Spouse is an elk now so we can use their facilities but this would not have worked for us.

We readied Hannah for her day.  Spouse loves to stop at the Virgin River Casino for their 4000 pound ham steak breakfast.  On the way, we stop at the Ace Hardware to get keys made.  That is when we started to play:  ‘Where is my _______?’    Spouse goes to pay for the keys and cannot find his wallet.  It is not in the truck and we cannot find it in Hannah.  We hunt, we search…  Duh… in his shorts of TOO MANY pockets, it is in the lower one…  Then we try to find my truck key that Spouse had….  We hunt, we search… those friggin’ shorts…  Spouse cannot have so many pockets… 

After breakfast, we head north on I15, leaving the triple digit heat of Mesquite behind us for the triple digit heat of Arizona.  As we enter the Virgin River Gorge, we dip into the double digits, where we stayed.  The gorge is pretty; rugged and steep.  The river looks muddy but there is good flow.  We stop at the eyeglass repair store (Walmart) where they fix my sunglasses for free.  We bought an eyeglass repair kit.  Spouse says he has one already in the bottom drawer in Hannah, but that is the ‘drawer of death’.  One will NEVER find anything in that junk pile.

We are headed to Bryce Canyon…  where we found Rudy 4 years ago.  Will he remember it?  Will it trigger PTSD?  We could cut across near Cedar City, but that is windy and steep, so we head a bit further north to 20 and head east.  It is high desert prairie with marshlands mixed in – green but desert like.  Then south on 89 for a wee bit, where a stream meanders through the landscape. 

We set up Hannah at Ruby’s RV park.  We are not too far from the area we found Rudy.  He is not too interested in coming outside at first.  Then as it got close to the evening, he got all fired up to go outside.  Did he recognize it?  He certainly recognized the little chipmunks – oooh he wanted one of them.  But we really couldn’t tell if he knew where he was.  Of course, we are not specifically close to where we found him, so this should not be surprising.  Spouse took him for a walk.  He is a total chick magnet!  HE is definitely our cat now. 

There is a threat of rain, so we will hang here.  Tomorrow, we have to move our spot, but we will begin our vacation officially then. And, to be expected, there are a gazillion kids here.  Fortunately, they are not by us!

The first vodka tonic of the trip has been ingested.  It is a comfortable 80 degrees with a cool breeze.  We can open up the windows and enjoy the fresh air.  Yes!  A little bike ride so Spouse can get some ice cream topped off the night.