Monday, Mammoth travels back to Cedar Ridge

 12/28 Monday

Inca Doves, a bunch of 'em. So for this park, that makes: Canada Goose, Cormorant, White Pelican, Mallard, Coot, Gull, probably ring-billed, those two annoying confusing diving ducks, mockingbird, Common Ground Dove (probably), Osprey, Turkey Vulture, Black Vulture, Black-crested titmouse, no chickadees at all--strange, Bewick's Wren, Carolina Wren, Fox Squirrel and Feral Cat.  

Monday was the day to head over to Cedar Ridge COE campground so as to give Edward a shorter drive. He's working half days the next couple of days. He'll be leaving--with any luck--on January 6 to go back to Korea. Fingers crossed on that--he's going to try to attend May's interview with her.

Time elapsed inescapably, but we weren't really in a hurry. It turned out we really weren't in a hurry--check in time at Cedar Ridge wasn't until 2pm. We were at the dump station by around eleven and we arrived at the new place by 1:00 or so.  Or maybe even earlier. I heard the news twice on the radio (note to self--the Austin public radio station is 90.5 and it can be picked up scratchily here at Belton Lake).  So I'm thinking I heard the 11:00 news and the 12:00. I know I heard the end of "Texas Standard", a public ratio program they broadcast on our Dallas station also. They remarked that although it was 75 degrees yesterday and that later this week there was a chance of freezing rain or snow in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. Yippee.

Anyway we got here and had our site occupied and everything hooked up before Edward arrived. Although I think he was waiting for us to text him, so we might have got him here earlier to help with the hookups. No matter--we're used to doing it alone.

This time we had a prime spot, right by the bathroom. (sarcasm there) We did have a lake view, but the roof of our covered picnic table blocked it from inside the motor home. It was foggy and misty outside but fairly warm--light sweater weather. I dawdled over lunch and jelly beans until I could wait no longer...

Later. Round about four o'clock I finally got the legs moving on a long jog. I'd like to say 55 minutes, but with all the times Molly stopped to smell or eat junk off the ground, it was really a lot less. We went over to the Turkey Roost Group Camp and found all the turkeys there, plus the deer I hadn't been seeing around the campsites. They seemed a lot larger than they had last time I saw them.

I also jogged around the screened shelter area. It was pretty much deserted. But a very pretty place to be in the spring.  I found a bilboard with some history of the area posted....

I returned to find the ham cooking in the convection oven. So we were finally getting over our mistrust of the convection oven--up until this trip, we had only used its microwave feature. Frankly, with it being so old--presumably ten years old, same as the Mammoth RV--I was worried it might catch fire.

But no, it performed like a champ. Maybe we'll try some baking next! We'd cooked the brown-and-serve rolls in in the day before, and they were just fine. I mean, the rolls themselves were a little flat because I didn't let them rise long enough. But the taste and brownness were great. And now we've done ham, and tomorrow is going to be the big test--pot roast.

Ed and Edward finished the Charmed! episodes and started watching Castle. The episodes were pretty old but I didn't remember them, and I watched pretty much one entire episode before getting bored and starting back into reading a novel. I'm just not a television person, I'm afraid. Unless I have something to do with my hands, like knit. Which reminds me--I have a knitting project I've been carrying around for months and not started. It's time.