Fecal Face

DAY 15, 16, 17 :
The last three days have all melted together.  We're still at Mesa Spirit RV Park and we're using that as a spring-board to activities in surrounding areas.  We spent the majority of Day 15 (2/5/15) with our Mesa friends (Alvin 96, Miss Ellie 73) that we met in Panama last year.  They are a lovely elderly couple that is entertaining to be around.  They bicker back and forth in the spirit of fun.  We went out to lunch, got lost with Miss Ellie behind the wheel, and picked citrus fruit from their trees to bring home.

The next day (16) we woke up good and hungry as we had skipped dinner the night before.  We treated ourselves to a southwestern breakfast that was "out of this world".  We were now energized to take on our first lesson of shuffle-board at 9:00 am.  To say the least, shuffle-boarding is a SLOW game!  For someone who's a bit more of an aggressive player, this is not your cup of tea.  It wasn't mine!  I was glad when the session ended and hoped that Pickle Ball would be better suited for me.  Unfortunately we just found out that the next lessons are not scheduled until Monday.  In the afternoon we took our pups to a great doggie park in a neighboring community where they playfully chased balls and made new friends.

Yesterday (DAY 17) we went for a hike on the Wind Cave Trail, just east of Mesa.  It is a moderate trail, the last half of which has a pretty steep incline.  The trail is very rocky with lots of loose, rocky soil.  It was Saturday and the trail was full of hikers, some with their little ones and many with their pups.  I can't say enough how proud we are of our doggies for taking on this hike with us, not that we gave them a choice.  Teddy did especially well.  His short legs made climbing onto the rocks harder.  He also seemed to be bothered most by the heat, and I could tell that he was ready to be done and I debated carrying him at one point.  By then however, we were almost at the top so, to save his pride, I let him climb the rest of the way to the outlook.

The return trip down the trail was easier on all of us.  But, because it was very narrow, it was now our turn to move over and let those going up have the right of way.  At times the pups got vegetation stuck to their coats that I quickly removed as I was not sure if any of it may have contained stickers.  Apparently there were no stickers.... good, however Otis and his irritable-bowl-syndrome did manage to get some sh*# on his hind legs.  And, do you know what happened?... I got some on my hand while removing some innocent leaves.  The worst part was that I did not realize it until a second later,  AFTER I wiped away a fly that had land on my nose. I would have entitled this post Sh*# Face but then you would have thought I had gotten plastered as is the usual meaning for this idiom. No, I got poo all over my nose, and it smelled horrible, and all we had was some water.  No soap, no disinfectant wipes, no tissues, no nothing! I did the best I could to remove the stench from my nostrils and could not wait to make it to the bathrooms at the trail head.  What?  No soap! No toilet paper! No paper hand-towels! What kind of facilities is this?  It is a paper conservation site.  They only had a blow dryer to dry hands, the soap and toilet paper were out, I imagine because it was such a busy day.  As you'd understand, I was eager to get to a place where I could wash up.  A ColdStone Creamery on the way to our RV was our next stop.  We ordered our decadencies and off I went to the bathroom.  NO SOAP again!  What is this, a conspiracy?  We rushed back to our RV where I scrubbed my face raw with tons of soap and hot water, followed by a two hour swim in a well-chlorinated pool. I finally feel clean.  Our TOP (Teddy, Otis, Pippa) were more than glad to be left in the RV while John and I were at the pool.

We enjoyed a Mexican dinner from a whole-in-the-wall, and then we spent the rest of the evening around the RV drinking coffee and eating some treats we had purchased earlier.  The pups were pooped and slept the rest of the day away.