I am not Spoiled!

 I utter those words almost every morning as Barb hands me a tray containing my breakfast as I lay in bed. I've talked about it before, but living in 70 square feet with your spouse and two dogs does come with it's challenges. Especially when your spouse believes that there is a place for everything and everything must be in its place. And for me, that place is on the bed with Zoey. 

I am not allowed off the bed unless it is to go to the bathroom or getting ready to go out and do something. And if I do get down, Barb has to be seated at the dinette or out of the camper altogether. It is for this reason. I get breakfast in bed many mornings. A typical morning will go something like this; she will get up and take the dogs out. This is my cue to get up while they are gone and get ready for the day. By the time she gets back I am back up on the bed watching news on my phone. If we have internet, I will read a few blogs, but that is tough on my phone. 

She will then feed the dogs, make her coffee and drink it while looking at her phone. When she is done, she will say something like, "What are you thinking for breakfast?" Travel days are usually something simple like a bagel, English muffin or snack biscuits, but on non-travel days it could be bacon, eggs and toast, or even blueberry pancakes! She then makes breakfast, puts it on a cookie sheet and hands it to me in while I am on the bed. I take it from her, many times saying the 4 words in the title. "I am not spoiled. She usually says, "No, honey, you are not spoiled" and sits down to have her breakfast.

It's a rough life and the struggle is real, but I get by day by day.

Dakota's place is under the dinette. Most of the time. We find evidence of her being up on the bed while we are gone and have caught her up there a time or two. She will even make her presence known at night if I happen to be having a snack in bed at night. I will bear her rustling around down there, the camper will shake, the dinette will bounce and soon enough her head will pop up over the top of the bench seat with a look that says. "Wha'tcha got pappa?". I will either throw her something or invite her up on the bed. Believe me, it gets a little crowded up here with two dogs and two humans in bed!

Speaking of struggles. Poor Dakota. She is getting along pretty well with me helping her in and out of the camper and truck, but she had an incident this week that was just horrible. She was getting out of the camper and I had a hold of her collar to assist her. I don't really do to much except keep her from hitting the ground too hard when she takes that last jump off the stairs. We have done this dozens of times on this trip without incident....until.... Until she was jumping down and one of her hind legs got caught in the stairs and she was splayed out hind leg outstretched on top of the stairs and head in the dirt. I quickly released her hind legs and got her down on the ground. She seemed fine, She did not yelp (she never does) but she was limping. It was then that I noticed this on the stairs. 

An entire claw had been removed. I cannot even begin to imagine how bad that must have hurt, or was still hurting. Imagine getting your entire toenail ripped totally off!. We got her in the truck and drove to Tractor Supply where we bought some antibiotic cream, gauze and vet wrap. 5 minutes later she was all doctored up. Oh, and we gave her a doggie pain pill. 

She had gotten her claw stuck in one of the holes in the stair treads and then she jumped. The treads have since been covered.

I do not know how she is doing it, but she now walks around like nothing happened despite having the entire flesh on one claw totally exposed. I would be curled up in the fetal position (on the bed) crying like a baby. 

This happened on the day we met up with our friend Dale and Ruth. Quartzsite friends from back in the day. They bought a house in Tucson and travel during the summer. We spent a couple hours with them hiking a trail in the Saguaro National Park before heading to lunch and then happy hour at their house. 

Maybe it was because it was Saturday. Maybe it was because it was Valentine's Day. Maybe it was because it was Zoey's 5th birthday, but the parking lot at the park was absolutely packed! The trail was not as bad though and we had a great hike. The flora, although not in full bloom, there were enough to keep our cameras busy.

It was a great day (except for the Dakota incident).

Our first two days in Tucson we used our Harvest Host membership to stay at breweries. First Catalina Brewing Company and then Button Brew House. They were less than a 1/4 mile apart and both were roadside parking. 

The cool thing about Catalina is the fact that the brewery is filled old time pinball machines. How cool is that?!?! We put a few dollars in the machines and a couple of beers in our bellies before calling it a night. 

The next day and the two after that we got to hang out with Dan and Bonnie! They flew down from Custer to see Bonnie's brother (Bruce) and sister-in-law (Becky) who also live in Tucson during the winter. Dan had found us a place to park our camper for a few days at a horse facility about 15 minutes from Bruce and Becky's place. 

Some of you may find this weird, others of you will relate, but there is just something about the smell of a horse barn that triggers a sense of calm and ease. At least it does for us. It brought back memories of all the years we had horses. If they could bottle or make a candle with that scent, we would be customers for life. 

Horse Haven might not be the best facility in Tucson, but it was perfect for us, it was clean and you could tell the horses were well cared for. 

Over the next three days we got together with Dan, Bonnie, Bruce and Becky each day. Going out to eat, exploring the area breweries/distilleries and going to the top of Mount Lemmon which was snow covered and colder than it was back in South Dakota! Del Bac was the only distillery we could find in the area. They mainly distilled Single Malt Whiskeys. not my favorite. 

The views going up Mount Lemmon were incredible. 

When we got back down to the bottom we went to Guadalajara's, one of Barb's favorite restaurants in the area.  

Dan and Bonnie have been coming to this area for years and showed us some of their favorite places. One of which is the Tanque Verde Ranch which offers rooms, tours, horseback rides and a restaurant/saloon.  They must have over 100 head of horses on this ranch!

All too soon, it was time to hit the road again and head east. As we were traveling east along Interstate 10 in New Mexico, the wind started picking up and this warning came across our phones.

And sure enough, soon we started to see clouds of dust ahead of us. A few miles later, it enveloped us, but it was not too bad. 

We made it all the way across New Mexico that first day, spending the night at Camping World in Anthony, Texas. We have a special meet up/event planned. I am not sure if it is going to work out yet, but we are headed east in the hopes it will!

Meanwhile, while all that is happening, we get this email from back home. All of our mail is scanned and the images emailed to us each day.  One day this image is included as one of thing pieces of mail we are getting. The postmark is from Fargo North Dakota, the return address from JL Beer. We have been there, they provide free postcards for drunk patrons to write and send postcards to people across the country.  The address was right, the sender got our last name right, but that is all that make sense. The sender must have had one too many beers as we definitely do not know Jethro and Bambi!