Nature never seizes to amaze me. Look at this exquisite little creature! Just makes my day!
First I thought it was a tiny little hummingbird but ... it's a moth, if you can believe it!
It's a hummingbird moth! Ha! Almost got it right :-)
Before I'll show you some more of nature's marvels I'll have to show you something that I forgot to include in my previous post.
'While I was away' (almost sounds like a movie) James received the news from the truck repair place that the injectors were the problem indeed and that the it would take at least a week before they would have it repaired.
Since there really wasn't much for him to do but 'hang' and be bored, he decided to leave the RV in San Antonio and drive back to Lajitas so he could at least work.
At this time of the year many of the employee rentals are empty so he got one to use free of charge for the week.
He took some things with him from the RV, managed to borrow some furniture and a TV from the resort and created a sort of 'man cave', where he and Merlin hung out together!
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A bed, a hat, a cat ..... oh yeah, and some golf clubs. What else do you need?
When the truck was ready, he drove back to San Antonio, returned the rental car, picked up the truck, stayed the night at the campground, hooked up the next day and drove everything back again.
Now, as I mentioned in the previous post, we had planned to do this repair this winter and we were in the process to save up for it so we were faced with a little problem here ... we didn't have the cash (yet)!
To make a long story (and some sleepless nights) short, let's just say
...... we love you Mom!!
So here we are, happy to be home again. All three of us ....
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The weather has been weird lately. Mainly due to frequent
clouds and thunderstorm activity that has kept the temperature rather
down but unfortunately has raised the humidity.
Although we don't get much rain out of these storms they come with some freaky strong wind gusts as we very well know!
We have secured our awning with a new awning tensioner-system, that has raving reviews, and as you can see, we have it out about half way.
Let's just hope that these straps will be as good as everyone says!
The little rain we got woke up a few wildflower seeds:
These dainty orange beauties are Arizona Poppies or Caltrop.
And for a little more orange there was this Gulf Fritillary (looks like he narrowly escaped being lunch to something):
I hoped we would sneak into September staying nice and cool for the time of the year but this last week has been much, much warmer again.
I've taken to go swimming every day, somewhere in the afternoon, to cool off a little .....
Afterwards I stay holed up all afternoon in the RV with all three AC's running full blast!
Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention that James installed a small window AC in the bay window at the backside of the RV. The resort has several laying around that are placed in the employee rentals whenever one gets rented but at the moment quite a lot are not being used.
Saves on the ware and tare of our own and keeps the temperature cooler much faster!
Merlin likes to sit in the high grasses of the wash next to our site and pounced on 'something' that moved. He gave it a tentative bite but quickly spit it out! It turned out to be another walking stick!
Next up is a Western Pygmy-Blue butterfly (I think), it's very tiny, in fact, according to my guide, it's the worlds smallest butterfly (but common in the south).
It took me forever to get a good shot of it and when I was done I noticed that what I had felt on my foot, trying to stay still, had been fire ants who'd bitten me a couple of times for standing on their 'turf'!
Man, that itches!!
We're still golfing, despite the heat, but we're trying to get the earliest tee-time possible, which is close to sun-rise!
James and Merlin enjoying the cooler temperatures at sunrise with a cup of Joe.
'Buddy bonding time', James calls it. Pfff, .. guys!
The rising sun is coloring the mesa a vivid red.
And than it's off to the course! This morning we had some very local showers as well as sunshine!
In Holland we have a saying that calls this phenomenon: 'Kermis in hell'. 'Kermis' meaning carnival or fair.
It's hard to see but it was raining here and the water that fell was actually warm!
Such a die-hard!
Oh, I almost forgot, talking about rain (as in; it never rains but it pours), there was also this:
Yup, a tire blowout! Fortunately we were only 'doing' about 50 mi/hr and we were only 3 miles from Lajitas but it scared the bejesus out of me!
A loud (very loud) bang (more a BANG) and lots of 'stuff' flying around, everywhere behind us! Fortunately, it was a back tire and, even better, the inside one of the dualies so we didn't loose any steering and James could get us to the side of the road without any problems.
No further damage was done to the truck and after taking the tire off, we're now limping around slowly on just the one until the new tire(s) arrive.
Fortunately, James usually uses the resort truck to get around here anyways.
(Guess what? We'd planned to replace 4 of the tires this coming winter also! Now where did I hear that sort of a plan before?! ;-)