This was the sight that greeted me this morning upon opening up the curtains. What a beautiful sunrise! It was drizzling rain and overcast when I took this photo, but what color! We were awakened around 3:00 a.m. by rain drumming on the metal roof. Rain! The first we’ve seen since our arrival. Everything is so dry and parched here that the threat of fire remains very high, so it was nice to have some moisture. The cabin was chilly when we got up so I started a fire in the wood stove. Now it’s nice and toasty in here and the clouds are lifting, the sun is shining and it promises to be a lovely day.

Tuesday was our day to go into Laramie to grocery shop. We got a late start, stopping in to get reacquainted with neighbors Larry and Donna, so we didn’t arrive in Laramie until 11:30. This time we skipped the Safeway and did our shopping at the super Walmart and Albertson’s. Safeway is off our list of places to shop after getting bad chicken twice on Monday. First we did chicken wings for lunch and when I took a bite I knew they were off. We had also bought a whole chicken to make Bob’s Oven Fried Chicken with but when we opened the plastic wrap on it it had a definite off smell. The sell by date had not even been reached yet. Disgusting! We ended up eating a can of chili that has been in the cupboard for a couple of years (date still good!) and topped it with cornmeal and baked it in the oven.

Anyway, I am getting off track. We got home around 2:30, so most of the day was pretty much taken up with running around. It was a relief to get “home” and just chill out.

We had visitors in the afternoon. Cows. They seem to like our new little clearing. About seven of them decided it was a nice place to hang out and eat some grass, so they stayed for hours. Stupid cows. We are in open range country here which means if you don’t want the free ranging cattle on your land you have to fence them out. Otherwise they go where they want to. My mom would have thrilled to see them. Me? Not so much. They leave droppings everywhere which the dogs seem to think are pretty tasty. Here you can see two of them. The black one is hiding behind the tree.

I also have a correction to make. Our bird is not a Prairie Falcon but a Merlin. And a female or young adult at that. The male has also been around but I haven’t been able to take a photo of him. He is gray instead of brown on the back and very beautiful. She was here again yesterday but we haven’t seen her yet today.

Yesterday we decided to go down the road to Egger’s Pond for our morning walk. It can be a hot walk for the dogs, so we like to do it early in the morning before the sun gets too strong. When we got close to the pond, Bella took off on her own and we could hear splashing. Even though we could not see her we knew where she was. I wish we could have seen her go in for the first time because Egger’s Pond is deeper close to the shore than our pond is. She was completely wet so we know she must have been taken by surprise by the depth. I know I am always posting photos of Water Bella, but I can’t resist. She loves it so much!

It’s a nice long walk along the road and by the time we got home she was mostly dry.

This old tree is along the way and is one of my favorite subjects any time of the day.

Another favorite tree only this one is on our property along the road. Every year I take a photo of it because I know there will come a day when it blows over. Just over the past year another beautiful dead tree next to it has succumbed to the wind and is no longer standing. It’s so sad when these old friends fall over.

Yesterday we just took it easy around the cabin after our walk. It turned out to be a very cloudy day with the threat of rain. Finally a day when that strong western sun wasn’t glaring down on us! We finished a jigsaw puzzle that we were putting together which was quite an accomplishment given how hard it was. Time to start another one!

After dinner we took a drive around Sand Creek Park to see if we could spot any wildlife. We saw nothing. No deer. No elk. No moose. We have not heard any coyotes or owls either since we’ve been here. It seems void of wildlife other than cows but I’m sure we are just missing them. Here is the sun going down on the beaver pond with Bull Mountain in the background, followed by the sunset from last night.

And with that I think I’ve come to the end of this blog post. More to come I’m sure!

I liked the shadow of the little leaf behind the big one. I just love the shape of aspen leaves!

We are settling into cabin mode slowly but surely. We get up, have some coffee and a bite of breakfast and then take the dogs for a walk. It’s been very windy for the past two days and unseasonably warm. You can tell how windy it is by looking at the dog’s fur blowing in the next few pictures.

Here is Bella posing prettily in front of Bull Mountain.

And Bella and Alex.

Hailey wanted her picture in the blog too.

Some of the aspens are really turning like this little grove on our property, but others haven’t even started yet.

I managed to find a photo we took last year to show how it looked before the tree removal took place. Here is the “before” photo followed by the “after” photo.

And here is what it looks like from inside the cabin looking out.

We can now see birds flying through the clearing. This prairie falcon visited this morning. It kept heckling the steller jays and swooping around the bird feeding station. We are not sure what it was up to but perhaps it views the newly opened space as its hunting ground and was not used to the jays being around it. He was beautiful to watch and kept us entertained for a good 45 minutes.

Our dear friend Linda drove all the way up from Denver yesterday to visit. It was wonderful to see her again. She is Alex’s breeder, and the minute she stepped out of her car he knew who she was even though he has not seen her for five years. It was so sweet to watch them get reacquainted. We talked and talked, drank wine (maybe a bit too much), and went on a few walks. She got to see Bella’s water dog act in action.

Her stay was short and after a long walk with the dogs this morning, she left to make the 3 hour drive home.

As I type the wind is whipping around the cabin in very strong gusts. I think the sound of the wind could drive a person crazy if it went on for very long. Hopefully it will stop tomorrow! It’s not very pleasant to be outside even though the temperature is 75 degrees F.

Tomorrow we will need to go into Laramie for more groceries since we only bought enough to get us through today. Maybe this time we’ll try shopping at the super Walmart instead of the Safeway even though I don’t like shopping at Walmart for groceries all that much. But, we don’t have a whole lot of choice!

I’ll leave you with this photo that I took this morning of this strange cloud that was hanging over the cabin.

We arrived at the cabin around 2:30 yesterday afternoon after a brief and somewhat frustrating grocery shopping expedition at the Laramie Safeway. It’s much warmer here than we would expect it to be in mid-September and the aspens have just started to change.

We were somewhat apprehensive about seeing the land surrounding our cabin since it would be the first time since we had around 200 beetle-killed trees removed in March of this year. It looks odd to our eyes and not the view we expect to see when we look out the window, but we think it’s a good kind of odd. Right now it’s a bit of a mess since they removed the trees while there was still quite a bit of snow on the ground to allow them to burn slash piles, and there are tree stumps higher than they should be and lots and lots of slash left.  But it has opened up our view and we can see the sunset now where before we had too many trees to see it. We can even see the silhouette of Bull Mountain through the remaining trees! I

I’m not sure if there is a photo of what it used to look like on Rick’s computer, but I’ll see if I can find one, then take a picture of what it looks like now.

We didn’t do much yesterday, just unpacked and tried to settle in after our long drive. We took a few short walks with the dogs and they seemed right at home. The cats knew where they were too and took up their old habits, such as eBay escaping outside without us knowing about it. Rick found her happily exploring under the picnic table. We will have to be more careful when letting the dogs in and out.

Here is a photo of the sunset on our walk last night; Bull Mountain is the backdrop.

We were a little worried about our steller jay population since their habitat are the big pines that we removed so many of. This morning when I opened the curtains there was a steller jay sitting in the tree as if it to say, “well, where are my peanuts?” I was very glad to see him. After I put some bird food out four of them arrived to feast on peanuts. They seem to be holding their own. I also saw a lot of flickers which I don’t remember having so many of.

This morning on our walk Bella couldn’t wait to get back into the pond for a swim. She certainly remembered that from last year! She splashed around a good bit, then would come out and shake off only to go right back in again. Our not-so-little water dog!

That’s the update for now!

Two hard days on the road of 10+ hours each day have landed us in one of our favorite hotels on the trek westward that we stumbled across last year: The Rodeway Inn in Grand Island, Nebraska. The trip so far has been uneventful (unless you count Sam throwing up in his crate on Day 1) and basically easy. The most traffic we’ve encountered was in Illinois. Plus, there is only one rest stop, and a really great one for dogs at that, but it was closed. Boo on Illinois!

Lots of trucks, which I hate. Especially when they swerve around in their lane into mine and then you are not really eager to pass them. I’ve thought of a way to entertain myself while Rick drives and that is make a bunch of placards which would basically grade their driving skills and hold it up to show them as we pass. Things like “stop texting!” “you’re doing a great job of driving” “don’t do that again,” etc. You get the idea. They might even get a kick out of it if I’m careful not to tick them off. What do you think? Of course if they are busy texting they won’t be reading my placards! We saw some people in cars reading maps, books and what looked like actually doing work with bunches of paper flying all over the place. What are people thinking do all those things as they hurtle down the interstate at 70 mph?

We were walking the dogs in the dark last night when I thought I saw a cat by the dumpster. I said something to Rick about “watch Bella because there’s a cat over there” when I saw another furry creature come tumbling out of the dumpster. Oops. Not a cat, and neither was the first one. Raccoons! Have you seen that commercial on TV advertising eyeglasses where the woman calls “here kitty kitty, come snuggle with mommy” and she lets a raccoon inside the house instead of “kitty”? That was the first thing that popped into my mind.

We’re about to order in Dominos’ to our room. This time we’ll try and call the Domino’s in Grand Island instead of the one in Kearney like we did last year. oops! Some guys right outside my window with a lake view are going to take advantage of the BBQ facilities lakeside and grill some burgers or hot dogs. The weather is lovely this year instead of the pouring rain like last year.

Anyway, I am rambling because I haven’t slept well for two night now and am very road weary. I’ve read this over but I am so tired I can’t tell if I made any sense or not. So, I am going to close for now and help Rick decide what we need grocery-wise for the next four days or so at the cabin. Please forgive my errors or lack of sense-making!

Next stop: the cabin!

Preparations will reach a frenzied peak today as we get ready to leave tomorrow on our big road trip West.

The dogs have been groomed, so they are clean and smell good. I had them booked in at their groomer for yesterday but she called me on Sunday to say that she was very sick with some kind of flu and couldn’t do them. OH NO! Instead of waiting until Monday to call around to see if I could find someone else to groom them, Rick and I pooled our efforts and bathed and blew-dried them all on Sunday afternoon. Of course they are all shedding like crazy. What a mess. But, it’s done.

The fig tree was supposed to go over to my neighbor’s yesterday around early evening but we had a pretty good thunderstorm, so that got delayed until later today. It needs watering every day so Aileen has agreed to care for it. It will stand in her flower bed and should be pretty happy over there.

The dogs know something is up. They were ready to go on Sunday when we cleaned out the Suburban and put their crates in it. At least Alex knows what is coming I think. They are barky and jumpy and they are driving me nuts. The cats will try to hide in the morning and we’ll have to find them, but we know all of eBay’s hiding places and Sam is just too darned big to hide.

Rick caught the cold bug that I had over the weekend and isn’t feeling the greatest. Nothing horrible, just sinus headache and stuffy head, sore throat. It only lasted 48 hours with me, so hopefully he’ll be feeling pretty good tomorrow. I hope so since he is the main driver!

The pool was closed yesterday. Sad, but it was time. Now we don’t have to worry about running the robot all the time just to get up the acorns that have made their way to the bottom. It has its nice cozy winter cover on which should act more like a trampoline for the acorns ... boing!

Mostly I am feeling ready and organized but I know I will have last minute packing anxiety. Not that clothes are hard to figure out at the cabin—nothing fancy required! And no dressing up to go into town either. After all, it is just Laramie.

I will probably blog from the cabin if anyone is interested ...

Bella and Sam ... watching ... waiting ...