Catching up with ourselves

Due to a dying battery in our Mobile Hotspot (Mifi) I have not been able to stay online long enough to put out a blog post, so this will whiz through a bunch of stuff and have smaller pictures as I catch up with our latest happenings. Remember, you can click on any picture and bring a larger version up in a slideshow of all the photos in this post. Cool, eh?

We have spent each Shabbat on a spectacular, one day trip to the worship YHVH amid the splendor of His amazing creation. Last Saturday, we visited Bryce Canyon. Words cannot describe...

A sweet couple from England took our picture at one of the many overlooks.







The Sabbath before that, we drove around Zion Nat'l Park and a loop into Arizona. Again, it just takes your breath away!

Five miles north of Kanab, UT, is the headquarters of Best Friends, the nation's largest no-kill animal shelter. The place is vast and amazing. We enjoyed poking around there - so much to see and learn. They even have an RV campground. Inquire at the administrative office, educational center and store.

Weekdays, when we're not doing work around here, we have explored St. George, Utah and Mesquite, Nevada as well as the back roads around Cedar City. The locals are always ready to point us to a new adventure and provide background history on what they term as the Color Country, a very apt name.

Baby Snooks is always ready to go... until very recently. Not long ago, she began to loose interest in travel, food, and life. Her belly grew larger and her body bonier... and she had less bladder control. So, to the vet we went. It was a sad trip but not unexpected news. Our sweet little girl is in congestive heart failure. The symptoms, bloating, etc. can be helped with meds, but her 17 year old heart is almost worn out. So now she is on Lasix (furosemide) which helps cut down fluid retention. She is not in any evident pain and still enjoys love and life and some treats, and we will treasure every moment we are blessed to have with her.

As I said earlier, our hotspot battery was dying. Verizon told us to go to http://www.batteriesplus.com, but we could not find a comparable battery on the site which won't let you search as I needed to (they have you search by lists). Richard suggested going to Las Vegas to look for one (we had tried all the local options) but I thought it silly to drive that far when we have the internet. But wait, there's more...

Our dear granddaughter posted on Facebook that her coon hound had thrown up in his crate - a "huge" throw up! She sent out calls for help, but her husband is serving overseas (Air Force) and her friends were all busy... Soooo, I thought, why not? And we gathered up Snooksie and headed for Vegas, Baby!

On the way, I called all three Batteries Plus stores in Vegas. One said they would order it and have it for me the next day. Bingo! We could have had it sent to Enoch where we are staying, and saved the trip, but in all honesty, the trip was really more about Tia's vomit emergency that getting the battery.

So, we ended up staying the night at Tia's after a fun day of shopping and visiting and eating. Early in the morning, Baby Snooks needed out, so I went out and sat on the patio as she did her business and stretched out on the semi-cool flagstones. A hidden fountain bubbles out and over a small waterfall into a little pond. Very relaxing to watch. Soon, Tia let her two dogs out and they pranced around the yard relishing the dawn of a new day of play.

Soon, Buddha, the Rottweiler, went back in, but Odin stayed out to play. Snooks snoozed on, relishing the hint of a breeze. I went back in to use the bathroom and when I returned, the yard was empty, or so it seamed. After checking both side yards and looking under tree overhangs, I decided Baby Snooks must have gone into Tia's room with Odin. So, I went back in and dozed on the sofa. 

I woke up to a discussion of the missing Snooks. Oh, no, I thought, she is not with Tia! We went out to search, and Richard found her... standing in the pond! She doesn't see well and must have just walked over the edge, perhaps trying to follow me when I went in. The pond is fairly shallow, but she is short and was neck deep in the cool water. Good thing Las Vegas is hot and she was not chilled. I was choked with the thought of what could have happened and so thankful she was all right and even ready for a ride home.

Later in the day, we ran some errands and Tia took us to dessert at Claim Jumpers. We had eaten dinner there the night before and commented, if you want dessert, you need to come just for dessert... so we did!

The big, white thing is actually a giant eclair, stuffed with bavarian cream and topped with hot fudge, then gilded all around with whipped cream... the three of us ate this!

The dark dessert is a single slice of a monstrous and killer chocolate cake... six layers tall, that is over a foot tall! Yeah, we each took a two-layer portion home. We'll be eating cake for a while!