My morning began with a nice shower, then a drive to the other end of the park to view the few sights I had missed the day before. We went to see the old rock cabins and were alone there in a fairly clear area, so I let Luna off-leash to enjoy herself for a bit. When I leash her these days, I truly feel guilty; she has incredible recall and has done everything right and yet I am tying her, my wonderful little friend, to me so she can’t do her own thing, I feel like I owe her an apology every time I put it on! I take the leash off for most photos, but do generally observe the leash regulations, occasionally I’ll let her have some fun if it’s an area where no one else is around and where I am not overly concerned about snakes and ticks.
We then did the short hike to Elephant Rock and admired beautiful Lake Mead from a distance, before heading back the other way. My plan was to drive to Waterholes Canyon, which is in the Northernmost area of Arizona, I was likely quite near it before, but missed it on my list. I drove for only a few hours, really, but was in Nevada, Arizona and Utah, each for awhile. I stopped at McDonald’s for some wifi, having been with only very poor service the past couple days and had a nice call with Sean while I was there. I hope to find a McDonald’s with good wifi again soon, perhaps tomorrow, to spend some time updating my blog and replying to emails. As I drove, I began to see signs for Best Friends Animal Society, an incredibly well-run and well-known animal sanctuary that I had been planning to tour. I pulled over to check how far it was from me and found it was only 19 km! The sanctuary runs 2-hour tours several times a day and I wanted to partake in one, so immediately called to schedule one as they needed advance notice if interested people had pets with them. Having lost an hour between Nevada and Utah, it was already 4:57 with them closing at 5:00 pm, so I was relieved when my call was answered. I got my name and information down with the very cheerful and friendly receptionist, then got recommendations for campsites from her. I chose to look for the BLM campgrounds she mentioned, finding one of them with little trouble. Several herds of deer were beside the dirt road I drove on, the final herd I came across had several members cross the road, one quite close and bolting with such panic while the others ran the other direction, I felt bad for giving them such a scare. BLM land is generally free to camp on, this one has a campsite you’re supposed to stay in that charges a $5 fee, it is quite a nice place with good tables, garbage cans everywhere, campfire pit and a very clean pit washroom. They even have motion detector hand sanitizer in the outhouse, most campgrounds and trails don’t bother with any attempt at a hand sanitizer or soap if they have water, so this was an exciting find! And clean restrooms are such a commodity here that they’re advertised all over on billboards for businesses, so to have one that looked freshly cleaned in the middle of nowhere was quite a nice surprise! Oh the things you begin to appreciate most when on the road. I let Luna explore the campground as I signed up for my site, then we headed in the the vehicle for the rest of the evening as darkness fell. As I read, Luna draped herself across my legs in a way that looked quite uncomfortable; after an hour or so, when I decided to get to my blog and photos, I apologetically asked her off of them in order to get the blood back to them as they had stiffened up with the day of inactivity after walking so much the day before.
Wildflowers are starting to bloom and the flowers on trees are opening up as well, so much beauty!
Enjoying the hearth in one of the old stone cabins...as she gives me the stink eye for wasting her time with photos.
I attempted to use this lighting to take nice photos of Luna with the shadowed black backdrop, but she was not interested in standing up straight and looking at the camera.
"I'm going to eat this mountain!" *Chomp* If you open these up and flip back and forth quickly it is quite entertaining....at least, to me it is.
Ha, I ate the mountain.
I feel like I should be taking a photo with my hand on her leash or her tail and take photos everywhere we go like some of those viral couple posts of his hand in hers as she looks in to the distance.
Lake Mead in the distance.
No comments:
Post a Comment