Spring Cleaning & Cow Time at the Doggie Corral

Hi all, Dianne here.  Roger and I are making preparations to head north next month.  Roger's main task has been to plan the route and get reservations.    We're all set and ready in that regard.  Next task is to clean, organize, and make the motor home ready for traveling again.  

Last October, while we were in Coarsegold, CA for a month, we started the arduous task of removing the Diamond Shield film from the front of our motor home.  It served its purpose by protecting the paint on the front of our motor home all these years, but had discolored and was really starting to look bad. 

 We spent weeks painstakingly peeling it off, but did not have time to finish.  The adhesive under the film required special remover and was a terrible mess to remove.  Finally, six months later, we had time to finish the job.

Our goal in finally finishing this project was to then hire one of the local wash and wax crews to give our motor home a good cleaning after sitting for four months in the Texas dusty wind.  

 We hired a crew that had been recommended to us, and they did a great job washing and waxing our 36-foot motor home, all for $110!!  You won't see that price anywhere up north.

We were thrilled with the results!


Now that the outside looks better than ever, we're starting on the inside.  I have carpet cleaners scheduled for next Tuesday.  We're also going through every nook and cranny to remove anything from the motor home that we haven't used in a year.  All that stuff that we brought along just in case is outta here, if we haven't used it yet.


A side note:  Roger just returned from swimming laps and wanted it documented that he swam a mile today in the lap pool.  We're still exercising; I did my bike ride this morning, too.  Strong winds made for a strenuous ride.  


We also took both dogs in for vaccine updates in readiness for hitting the road.  Chaplin has been diagnosed with hemangiosarcoma skin cancer.  We had some bad places removed a month ago, and there was one that was missed that started to grow.  Not wanting to deal with that on the road, we took Chaplin back to have several more spots removed.  We are crossing our fingers that this takes care of it for a while.  At least he'll be able to head north and hike with us this summer.  The cancer has not spread internally, so he feels just fine right now.

It's unfortunate that he's recuperating with stitches and can't run, because there are two new whippets in the neighborhood!  Bandido was able to run and play with one of the whippets at the dog park yesterday.  

Today Bandido had a "play date" with Dolly, one of the only pals he has left (all others have headed north already).  The cattle at the farm next to the dog park came over to the fence and were really interested in Dolly and Bandido.  At first Bandido, my Australian cattle dog, acted afraid of the cows, but instinct finally kicked in and he had fun running in circles in front of them.

The pet photo of the day isn't even our pet.  Had I been just a bit faster with my camera, I would have had a great photo of this cow licking Dolly on the nose!