Clouds are such interesting things. They are constantly changing, rearraging themselves as they glide along. As a child I used to lay in the grass grazing up in the sky to find animal and other shapes in their fluffy formations. 

As an adult I am still very aware of the different nuances of clouds. Hence, the reason why on Sunday as we were polishing Mia to a nice shiny finish after her bath, I noticed the reflection of the cloud deck in Mia's hood. Did you figure it out before I told you?

One evening last week as we were ready to get into the pool to do our laps, I noticed the clouds fanning out in rows. I had never seen this particular formation before. At least not that I can remember anyway.

I've had several nudges from both my sister and my husband to blog about our trip to Mystic last weekend. It's hard to believe that was one week ago! I swear, the older I get the quicker time passes by. I have no excuses for not blogging about it. Lazyiness, perhaps.

The weather was not great when we started out and it was pouring rain. The trip was supposed to take a little over three hours. It ended up more like 4 hours, 45 minutes. There was an accident that snarled traffic in which we sat in a hour long "stau" (traffic jam) and then we hit several other slow-downs because of construction and sheer volume of traffic. I-95 is a mess between here and just past New Haven, CT. So very populated! We finally arrived at our destination and friend Carolyn was right there to meet us while we were checking in.

So far our two outings with the L@dyBug have been after the area we are going to has been inundated with rain. Such was the case last weekend as well. I had reserved a really nice, secluded spot in the campground. When we arrived we were informed that they had to move us because our reserved campsite was water-logged. Bummer. They gave us our choice of several spots and we chose one that had a vacant area on one side. There were even cows in the pasture across from our spot.

The campground was a really nice one. There are part of the Sun RV Resorts and I can say that I will seek out a franchise of theirs again. All the sites were a good distance away from the neighbor's and included wi-fi and cable TV. There were no sewer hook-ups because they are on a septic system -- something we are finding very common here in the east.  Not a problem, we just dump our grey and black water at the dump station on our way out. The restrooms were clean and well kept, the pool looked beautiful (we did not partake) and they were building a mini putt-putt course. They had lots of things for kids to do, and a great store where we bought a coaxial cable for the cable TV which we had yet to purchase, and also had to purchase another water hose for hooking up to the water since ours would not reach. We also realized we had forgotten to throw in our bed pillows. Doh ! ~ (hitting forehead).

We were certainly a duck out of water here since everybody else's rig (RV speak) was much bigger than ours. We had several people comment that they loved our "rig". How many people can say their tow vehicle is twice the size of the trailer they are towing?

<snip> see that trailer behind us? The guy was a cigar smoker and his disgusting smoke wafted our way more than once. And, I might add, I always get the seat on the plane with a little kid "kicker" or tray-snapper behind me. sigh.

Because we were afraid of the forecast which was calling for heavy rain overnight, we did not put up the awning. I think she looks so cute without it! The rain we were so hoping would not happen and spoil our little cook-out, did indeed not happen. It was a little rushed given our late arrival and I wish we had had more time to unwind and just chill with Carolyn. But, it worked. Carolyn opted to drive back and forth each day since she was only an hour away, so we wrapped up our evening early so she could avoid the impending storm that the radar was showing.

To be continued ...

Today we are off for a 3-day weekend event to Mystic, CT with the L@dybug. This will be our first time out without the dogs along. We are meeting up with friend Carolyn (who lives in Rhode Island). For once we are headed her direciton instead of her coming our way.

For more, visit our T@B site and read the rest of the entry.

Two windows in San Miguel. Is it any wonder why I love this city? The road is slanted, not the photo!

You all know how I used to feel about Facebook. I dug in my heels and refused to participate, even to the point of deleting everything I done on it so far. I'm not sure what made me think differently. Maybe it was our friend, Phyllis, back in Colorado that recently had a kidney transplant. I knew she didn't read the blog and I wanted to be more in touch with her. I'm not sure. All I know is that one day I woke up and said "today is the day I start posting on Facebook."

I started this blog when we moved to New Jersey so that my family members and close friends could keep up with us in our newly adopted state. After a while I realized that only a few of them were even reading. Facebook is a good way to keep up with them without them having to slog through reading my blog if they don't want to. I will always post a link to my blog post on Facebook and they can either choose to follow the link and read, or not. And they still get to know what we are up to. A win-win. I figure what the harm? My blog is public now and open to anyone who happens to stop by. My Facebook account is set up for only friends to be able to access my mind's meanderings.

Aren't you glad I'm not ranting and raving about it anymore? It's actually kind of nice. I feel connected.

However, I still feel that social media can quickly get out of hand if taken too far. If we aren't careful it could all end up like the book The Circle where everyone has to know everybody's else thoughts and you have to "like" everything everybody in your "circle" does or they get offended — and sometimes your circle contains a large part of the world and you have to keep track of all of them. It's an interesting read and it makes you think about privacy control issues. The main character works for a scarily powerful internet company (which mimics Google). She wears a camera and records everything that she sees (except for bathroom privacy moments) and it all gets "shared" over the internet as it unfolds in real time. The whole thing is very creepy, especially the ending.

And what about those Google glasses or a tiny camera called the Narrative that you clip on and it captures photos of your day by taking two pictures every minute. I mean, really? You can photograph things without anyone knowing. And why? Do we really have to "remember every moment?" If we do our brains are sure to explode from all the unnecessary garbage that we don't need! Do we need to be that plugged in? I think people spend more time recording events on their phones than they do actually participating in the event. When we saw the Rockettes Christmas show at Radio City Music Hall, the entire row in front of us was rudely holding up their phones, recording the performance. We politely asked them to stop  and put down their phones so we could see the show. Instead of living in the moment we are always looking back at what we missed because we were so caught up in capturing the moment.

I've been guilty of doing this very same thing when I tote my camera everywhere. I am always the one taking photos and sometimes I've felt like my experience was taking photos and not the actual experience of whatever I was doing. Do you know what I mean? I sometimes now even leave my camera behind when I go for a walk, just to enjoy the experience and not to record it. (Even if I do say "darn, I should have brought the camera" at times.) And then I think to myself, never mind, just enjoy the moment.

Okay, I've started rambling now and I am not sure I am making any sense at all anymore, so I'll stop here. Read The Circle if you get a chance. It will make you think.

The pool temperature was hovering at a very chillly  65 degrees F since its opening. It took until Friday to really have Robby the Robot clean it completely. We fired up the heater Saturday morning and set the temperature to 80 F. It took it most of the day to reach 78 F, using less propane than we thought it would, which is a good thing given that it doesn't come cheaply. 

We put the rest of the cabana curtains up early Saturday morning and got all the furtniture inside. How do you like our little backyard paradise?

We waited until after dinner to take the first swim of the season — with suits on, I might add. It felt really good but we both could only do ten lengths before calling it quits. It's something we have to work up to. We waited and watched for fireflies but they did not make an appearance. The frogs were our only entertainment.

On Sunday, after a trip to the Warwick Farmer's Market, we brought the L@dybug up from the back yard to the front in preparation for our trip to Mystic this weekend. Johnny does double duty as a tow vehicle!

We had lunch poolside:

• Strawberry Arugula Salad (with fresh berries from the Ringwood Farmer's Market)
• Goat Cheese (from the Warwick Farmer's Market)
• Slice of baguette (also from the Warwick Market)
• and fresh cut flowers from whatever we had blooming in the yard.

Then we spent the better part of the afternoon in the pool. The pool temperature was perfect and the day was a beautiful one. Just perfect for pooling.

After a dinner of delicious ceviche and pisco sour, we headed out to the L@dybug to sit and chat for a while. We took the phone out too and called Rick's mom. While we were on the phone with her the dogs were inside barking their heads off. At first we thought it was just jealousy that we were outside and they were not, but finally Rick sat up a little to look out the window and there was a bear walking by! Oh my, how exciting! It felt weird to be sitting so close to it in the L@dybug. It looked like the same bear that we saw two weeks a go. Of course, I did not have my camera or I would have gotten some great shots of him, but RIck was clever enough to look back at the footage of our weather cam to see if it caught him passing by. And it did! (Sorry for the tiny picture.)  Just strolling through our front yard unfazed by the barking dogs. 

It was a great weekend!