Monday, August 11, 2025 Staying Put... kind of...

 

Monday, August 11, 2025  Staying Put, kind of…

My humans had the nerve to put me… ME, into a carrier.  They took me from the little house that moves into a strange building.  There was a nice window where I could hang out.  Then my paternal human brought in another person, and allowed her to touch me.  I touched back, and I was real gentle as I could tell she was fragile.  I howled to go back home.

The site we are in is pretty awesome.  It is huge with large trees shading the area all day.  Rudy loves the squirrels that play here.  BUT…  We hate the noise…  we are not far from the freeway and it is noisy.  We asked to change to another spot and got the ok.   So we are changing from an awesome spot, down to a darn nice spot.  Not quite as big, but beautiful trees, and a few buildings behind deaden the noise.  Not as many squirrels for Rudy, but he loves exploring the buildings.

Moving was not that easy.  Spouse fights with our trailer hitch.  He was going to get a new one, but ‘fixed’ the one we have… kind of.  What happens is that it almost locks… so you can’t go forward, nor can you go back until it totally locks.  He has to beat it into submission, which he did, and we moved into our new spot.  Much less noisy… 

We took Rudy to visit with Kay (Spouse’s sister).  This was either going to be a really good thing, or a really dumb thing!!!!  To move him from the truck to the building, we put him in a cat carrier, which he does not like.  Once in her room, we let him out.  He bolted for the window and seemed to be ok looking out.  An occasional howl let us know he wasn’t happy.  Kay had been eating so when Spouse brought her in, we put Rudy on her lap and let her pet him.  I held him and let him pet her.  He was so gentle, not using his claws.  It was like he could sense how fragile she is.  We stayed for about an hour, then moved on.  Ergo… it was a good thing!

We brought Rudy back home, then headed out.  A stop at Ace Hardware so Spouse could get the pins he needed to do a repair.  I saw some chemicals for my orchids that you can no longer get in the nanny state of California.  There was only one bottle.  I would have bought them all!

We headed to Old Town for lunch.  Pulled up to a parking meter on a sidestreet…  and the fight began.  It did not like our credit card.  We used a different one.  Hated it!  We moved down a spot.  Same thing.  We moved around the corner and parked in a diagonal spot where there was still time on the meter.  We figured we would go get some coins at the restaurant, which we did.  BUT… we still got a f’n ticket.  Probably because our truck was long and hung over an imaginary line.  I think the California license plate didn’t help.  $15!  I hate them…  So many cities make it difficult to park.  Some have special apps, like I want an app for Podunk, USA on my phone.  Other cities install evil meters, like the ones today. They conspire against you.  They would not let us parallel park on the street.  They made us park in a diagonal spot, which apparently is too small.  Then they nail you!  Little bastards!  Go ahead and laugh… your time will come!

Old Town is very much middle America.  The brick and stone buildings are 100+ years old, many made from the quartzite found in the area.  Go outside of old town, and you have these awful modern glass monstrosities that totally rob the area of its character.

There are some great art pieces on the street, made from all sorts of weird things.

 The Big Sioux River runs through the center of town.  We went to the Falls area where there are lots of walking trails and viewpoints of the falls.  Back in the day, there was a flour mill and pump station.  All sorts of companies tried to make the river work for them in one way or another, but most of them were unsuccessful. Fire destroyed some of the buildings.  Humans defiled much of the area.  Around 50 years ago, the area was cleaned up, and now it is quite pretty.

We got back for Spouse to do repair work and get the bikes ready for a ride tomorrow. The weather has been very pleasant, in the 70’s, maybe 80 and bearable humidity.   Now, after a half of the country and several days of driving…  Let us start working some fun into the trip!