November 28, 2009 – Fort McDowell, AZ

I remember now why this isn’t my favorite RV Park in all the world; not only is it totally devoid of anything resembling grass, there’s lots of gravel around, and all of it has sharp edges and points. Yes, I admit to being a tenderfoot, but I wasn’t brought up running around in the wild and developing leathery paw pads. When Don and I went walking this morning, I was ready to go home halfway through it. I was really glad to get back to the coach and work on getting the loose gravel out of the paws. Geri and Don were involved with showers and such, so I spent the rest of the morning watching financial shows on TV. I think I’ll ask Don to put some of my funds into Purina common stock; looks like other dogs are eating it up.

We had some lunch and got into the truck for an excursion into Scottsdale. We went first to a place that said on its web site was an RV park. It was located closer in to Scottsdale than Eagle View is, and we might use it next time we’re over this way. On close inspection, maybe not. The closest thing to an RV in this place was a forty year old travel trailer that hadn’t traveled in thirty years. This was a parking lot for immobile mobile homes, mostly in poor repair. Don’t know why they call them mobile homes, anyway. Our coach is really a mobile home, but we have to call it a recreational vehicle to keep people from getting the wrong idea. Oh, well, not worth barking in the wind over. We did drive-bys on a couple of new casinos close to downtown Scottsdale, both huge and well attended. Then we went to Old Scottsdale, which is remarkably well preserved, considering that the oldest building in it looked like it had been built in the 1950’s. We got out of the truck and did some walking around to look at the shops, which mostly sold turquoise jewelry and tee shirts. Geri seemed pleased at the opportunity to visit the jewelry shops, until she realized that all of the mountings were silver, which she can’t wear, ‘cause it makes her skin turn black and look putrefied. She jumped Don on this, claiming that he knew that they only sold silver jewelry here, and that’s the only reason he stopped. He claimed total innocence, but I don’t know, he can be pretty sneaky. I had a good time, though, lots of people admired me and stopped to pet me; I only got in trouble once, when I noticed a couple sitting on a bench and eating what looked like burritos. Dog, they smelled good. I immediately assumed a sitting position directly in front of them, and fixed them with my hypnotic gaze, which is supposed to render them helpless and make them surrender their burritos. Geri was on the other end of my leash, but she was so far away I couldn’t hear what she was yelling at me. I knew I could prevail if I could just stay there long enough. But Geri came much closer and became very threatening, so I had to give it up as a bad job. Can’t blame a guy for trying, though.

It was starting to get kind of cold, so we got back in the truck and head for Fountain Hills to do some shopping. We found a Safeway, and Geri went in and got our orange juice, milk, and a gross of Weight Watchers certified Mallomars. When we went to head for home, Don programmed Garmie to take us there; but, once we got in gear, Geri wanted to go down to the Fountain Park for a short walk with me. While this was being discussed, Garmie kept shouting at us to make a U-turn and head back the other way; we kept rolling forward until it was decided not to go to the park. By that time, Garmie had sullenly crept back into her shell and indicated that we should continue forward on McDowell Mountain Road. Her display said that we would have to make a turn in about eight miles. When we reached the turning point, she sneeringly guided us into making a complete U-turn, which she had tried to tell us to do ages ago. Don’t mess with Garmie, or she’ll mess right back with you.

When we finally got back to the rig, Geri took me for my final walk of the day, and we both were shivering at the end of it. They took off and went to the local Casino to have some dinner, and I watched Saturday evening TV; for about six minutes. They got back pretty early (guess they lost their money pretty quick), and Don and I worked on the blog. I even got him to post a few photos! Well, to bed. We’ll see what tomorrow brings. Nite, all!