Swankie is back in the saddle…

June 18, 2012 - Hello everyone... my computer bit the dust.  Today is my first day off the mountain in over a month.  I am in the midst of trying to figure out how to replace/fix my laptop, buy two new tires so I don't get stranded up there and how to cope with having a job that is 3 times larger than I expected.  So, I had nice posts ready to publish for my readers/followers and they are now stuck on my laptop. 
June 20, 2012 – O.K. got my computer fixed and have uploaded the blogs I wrote on the mountain.  They are:
1) National Feed Charlene Day (June 9th).
2) Colorado – First Month (Part II) May 11-24.
I will say, it is very beautiful up there.  My body is coping by burning fat faster than I ever have before.  I am feeling lean and fit.  I'm walking a lot, working long hours, sleeping well, and getting really sick of the of the sorry excuse for humans that come to visit the wild.  Pigs, I tell you, nothing but pigs.

It took me hours to put this fire out… and then I removed 15 gallons of charcoal and still did not empty the pit.
Can you believe that????  There was toilet paper everywhere… and not all of it was clean?!!!

OK... say a little prayer that all those wonderful photos I've taken in the past year are saved.  Hope to share some of them with you as soon as possible.  I have decided to come to town at least every two weeks.  Trying to get caught up on all your blogs now.
Here are some:

		A swankie camp… VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Finally, the photos are saved off onto my External Hard Drive… and I will plan to burn back-up disc soon.  Tomorrow morning early I will drive back up the mountain, about a two hour drive.  I’ve been in town long enough to get sick from the first food and ice cream.  I may just loose my taste for that stuff.  My car has two new tires on the front which should make it safer on those mountain roads.  My van has been repaired by the guy whose First Up Canopy attacked it… he owns a body shop in Rifle, CO and even washed my van and gave me some touch up paint.  He even repaired dings he didn’t make.  Nice guy.  Crabtree Auto Body.
Not looking forward to July 4th holiday but grateful that as of Friday, June 22 there is a full fire ban in effect and no one can have campfires in the campground nor even smoke outside of their cars.  Yeahhhh.

National “Feed Charlene” Day–June 9, 2012

What a funny or fun day this was.  I’ve been on the job high in the Rocky Mountains now for three weeks.  No one has fed me.  But today, for some reason, everyone was feeding me???

My campsite is near the open place in the trees,
where you can see the road.

First, two campers were walking the mile back to their camp from the Lake,  had caught four rainbow trout fish.  I’ve never eaten that before… and to my surprise they invited me to lunch.  That was really really good.

Second, a young couple and their two kids were picnicking. I was busy doing something at my van and heard a small wee voice say “Do you want some corn?”  and this little girl handed up an ear of roasted corn. They had roasted corn in the husk over the fire.  Boy was that good.  I went about my work and later stopped to thank them for the corn and they offered me more, and then watermelon, then oranges (quartered), and then small Snicker candy bars.  Wow… guess it pays to be nice to people.  We chatted and joked and I asked it they needed to adopt a grandma.  They joked back, SURE!

And finally, a couple of gals camped at the other campground… with their families, came over to see my rock collection. We sat and looked at the three trays of polished rocks I finished last winter in Quartzsite, and joked and laughed… and then they invited me over for dinner.  Wow!  This day has got to end… I could gain weight here.  And what did they have??? Shrimp cocktail, one of my favorite things on earth.  And Black Eyed peas and bratwurst.  And fresh salad with most of the ingredients straight from Terri’s garden.  Terri is a very interesting gal and she even invited me to come down and stay over with them on my days off… and have a hot shower. They offered me a bedroom but I explained that I never sleep inside anymore, but then they offered me their driveway.  Perfect. 

I was so full by the time the day ended.  And I laughed to myself that this was the day of my 50th High School Class reunion back in Indiana… and I thought, NOPE, this day has been WAY BETTER than if I had gone to Indiana.  Just WAY BETTER!  (O.K., I admit it, I’m curious as to how the reunion went.)

The other day I baked delicious cornbread in my Griswold Cast Iron skillet in my Solar Sun Oven.   Yummm.