Screeching Halt

So. Sometimes in life things tend to come to a screeching halt. Quite unexpectedly. This is the way I would like to describe the past week of our life and our time in Carmel. It came to a screeching halt. In a nut shell.... I quit my job at the gallery for reasons I will not elaborate on here, we pulled up stakes and drove outta there, trailer and all. Nothing scandalous happened.... it was not a life or death situation or anything, it was (for a variety of reasons) time to take a breather from a scene that was getting way crazy and bizarre with the people we were surrounded by. You may ask.... "What people? To which I would have to respond.... "THE people".... that is all I can say.... there were people... and they were surrounding us with weirdness.... so we left. I was sleeping with one eye open, you know, that kind of thing. Now you may ask the question... "Where did you go?" Well, we came back to the cattle ranch. The ranch owned by my old friend Brook and her husband Mike. These are two people who will most certainly not surround you with any kind of weirdness. It is respite from all the things that were driving me nutso. It is a place where the main bits of action on a daily basis are things such as what you will see here...

You may see some cows runnin' in the fog. And if you feel like it you can run with the cows or after the cows. No one cares. Well, the cows may care, but from what I can tell so far they don't really seem to hold a grudge.



Or you can see some curly headed two and half year old silliness out on the front lawn. You can also get right in on this action and no one cares. It is encouraged as a matter of fact. Act silly... run crazy. It's all good. And it seems to help if you are wearing fancy new patent leather shoes for this particular activity.



This is Riley. She is smart as a whip and very funny. I may have to have my name officially changed to "Beff" just because she has put a serious shine on the sound of it for me.

We do have to keep a sharp eye on Rudy here because he tends to get covered from head to toe in cow shit if we don't. He loves it.

So what next? We are going to hang out here for a few weeks until after Christmas and then we are up for grabs. We cannot decide where to go or what to do. These are the moments when I am pretty glad that our home has wheels and the options are as wide as the horizon.

OK. Sorry this was a scattered post. It's late and I am goofy. I just wanted to update you all on the current status of scene. I will try to get back to normal posting again this week.

A Whole New Plan

Okay! So.... last I told you we were possibly going to head down the Big Sur Coast to Limekiln State Park for our camp hosting gig. AAAAannnndddd a day or so after that we found out the whole area was on fire. Still IS on fire actually. The planet is still working on itself in this neck of the woods.... working out the kinks, giving itself an extreme make over. It can't be bothered with a couple of geeks like us. So... once again we had to start thinking about a different plan. We spent a few extra days at Big Sur Campground where the nice folks who own the place offered us a chance to stay and work there for the coming season or two. We considered it but ended up not signing on because they needed rock solid workers through til next Fall and needed more hours than we were willing to commit to with our own businesses and the attention they require. They were great people and we wish them the best of luck in this upcoming rainy season! They have a lot of work to do to get the campground ready for possible flooding in the Big Sur River.

Also... we have to send a shout out to Betty Le at Pfeiffer. She is the ranger we worked with down there and is a super cool person. We shall return Betty. In a time when Big Sur is not heaving like a pissed off grizzly bear.

I got a bunch of neat pics on one of our last days in Big Sur while out tide pooling. This one is a great shot of a sea urchin... what a beauty. Click through to see it big, it's worth it.




So now we have returned back up to Carmel. We really love it here and may just stick put here for the winter. There really are not any state park camp hosting jobs turning up in locations we are interested in spending the winter so since this is one of our fave spots we may as well just hang out. And if we give Rudy a choice... he would pick Carmel over just about any place in the whole country. So there you have it. But don't hold your breath or count on anything. Our plans have changed 19 times in the past three weeks so anything could still happen.

Billy suffered through some serious finger pinching for me to get these two shots...





Rudy is glad as Hell to be back in Carmel. This is Dog City. We went down to the beach this afternoon and he celebrated his return with a few new friends...

I like to call the first two "Runs with Seaweed" and then "Dances with Wolf Hounds."





It is so great to be able to let him hang out and play with all these other dogs. He is crazy for it.

Right now I am in the midst of a cookie baking marathon. I have one small cookie sheet and a crap load of dough to bake off. It is an enormous waste of propane but it's happening. Tomorrow I am feeding this campground cookies. Unless Billy eats them all tonight.

Oceanic Cuteness and Concentrated Evil

The above picture is evidence that seaweed can indeed be cute. Sooooo cute. If there was ever any debate on this issue... I have just closed the case in favor of the seaweed. It is not always stinky and slimy.

Anyway... what else? Let's see. First off I would like to make a public service announcement of sorts... This is relating to dogs of course. Kind of like when they do a recall of certain tainted pet foods that make it on to the grocery store shelves and may sicken your animal. This is a warning to all dog owners. There is a product on the market that basically is microwave popcorn for dogs. It is a smaller packet than the human size one and this popcorn is bacon flavored. We were given a free sample of this product from a feed shop here in California. Since Rudy is IN YOUR FACE if you try to eat popcorn in his presence we thought... Hey! Great idea! Bacon popcorn for Rudy!
We fed it to him one night while trying to bribe him to let us file his nails with one of THESE. We crammed his face full of bacon popcorn and he loved it. He ate it until his eyes literally pleaded... "Please, please you have to stop giving it to me because I cannot stop eating it!" So that was that. Life goes on... until two nights later. Let me explain that the inside of our trailer is a small space. I mean... it is enough room for us to live and function and be perfectly comfortable and happy in, but when it comes to certain things, namely SMELLS, it can get really small, really fast. And on that particular evening it was like being housed in a shoebox with a seriously pissed off skunk. Bacon Popcorn = Bacon Popcorn Farts. Bacon Popcorn Farts that have been stewing for 48 hours in the gut of a dog. When I mentioned a pissed off skunk that does not really come close to capturing the true essence of this scent. It would be more accurate to imagine that the skunk also smells like greasy poop. Burning, greasy poop that is on fire and smoldering in a pit of old rubber tires. Yes. That about sums it up. At one point Billy and I were actually huddled in corners with clothes to cover our faces. It woke me in the night. There was no escape. Of course Rudy was oblivious. Every now and then he would shoot us a look over his shoulder as he let fly with a freshy just to see if we were paying proper attention. Which was unavoidable of course. My attention paying skills were forcibly at an all time high. So there you have it. Do not feed your dog Bacon Popcorn. It could be used as a seriously hateful tactic against a neighbor you are quarreling with... feed some to HIS dog. That'll fix him. Just make sure you are upwind of the situation on the day you execute your plan.

I will leave you with a few more recent beach shots from here in Carmel. I like to call this one... "Two Bearded Men."


This is a shot of Rudy in hot pursuit of a curly little lady on the beach who was playing hard to get...



And this last one is my favorite shot from that afternoon. The waves were just enormous and were breaking right on the beach. The sky was an incredible backdrop of clouds, blue sky and of course the sun.


We head out to Big Sur on Monday. I am hoping to still be able to get online via our air card so cross your fingers for us.