Some thoughts as we prepare for a short trip. 

The weather is fine today. Carol headed out to pull some weeds along the road from the office up the hill into the park. Neither of us seems to get enough volunteer work to do. I spent part of this morning tracing a broken phone line for a founder of the park. My work as President does not seem to stop. It seems to be Newtonian, every action generates a reaction. which requires a response. I do remember this from prior bouts as an officer of various organizations. 

While Carol was busy weeding, I stared at the two small Barrel Cactuses we bought at Home Depot the other day and decided they needed planting. But what to do for a shovel? Years ago when we outfitted the Rubicon for offroading I remembered buying a folding trenching tool. But where was it? After 10 or 15 minutes of searching the shed, the Jeep and finally a couple of different bins in the coach I found it “in the last place I looked” (why would I look anyplace else after I found it?)

Here is a picture of the new tiny Barrel Cactuses amidst the slightly more mature specimens in our garden. 

Also here is a lousy picture of a bird spotted in the park (Granite Loop for park members) Google Lens makes it a West of England Tumbler, not a bird found in my North American database. Alexander chime in if you know this bird.

Park wild life is enjoying the relative absence of people. Regular visitors are Bobcats and coyote and the rabbit population is setting the table for these predators. Extra snacks include California Quail which are mostly appetizers and ducklings, also mere appetizers. We have seen bobcats with grown ducks in their mouth headed off to the dinner table. Snakes just make walking an exercise in attention to footing, especially after dark. The nonvenomous varieties do a good job keeping down the vermin as do the owls.

The planned trip is to Salt lake City (hereafter SLC) to visit Azriel who moved there to take his first job in his dream career maintaining and repairing aircraft. We will stop in Redlands CA to get the coach serviced then two days to SLC. If the timing works we will celebrate our 59th anniversary in Las Vegas with a show we won’t book until we know the coach will be able to roll on Tuesday. We expect to be back in Jojoba Hills on the 28th. There are no further current travel plans before we leave for the East on August 2 by plane. However Hawaii keeps getting mentioned since Avi is there on Kona.