Meeting RV blog writer The Bird Lady from Travels With Emma Blog

Many RV blog readers are familiar with "The Bird Lady" aka Judy.  She has been blogging for a long time and chronicled her journey with her faithful dog, Emma.  They travelled to volunteer at a lot of nature preserves, wildlife refuges, and sanctuaries that rehab and facilitate bird habitats around the country.

http://travels-with-emma.blogspot.com/

She isn't blogging as much anymore, and decided to settle down in an Escapees park in Coarsegold, CA in a year round destination model unit. Recently she bought a smaller class B to travel and get back on the road for some adventures. 

Although we never met in person, we have exchanged friendship and greetings through our blogs over the years.  We also have a few mutual bloggers in common that we have both met.  

Two weeks ago, I got a quick message from a fellow blogger, Sue, that Judy the Bird Lady was going to be in Wisconsin for just a few days.  And that we should try to connect and meet up if we can!  

Wellllll --- Of ALL the campgrounds she chose to be in Wisconsin for a few nights was also the SAME campground that we were going to meet some other friends at on the SAME day! What are the odds?  

Guess that it was meant to be that we should meet up in person! 

We drove on up and connected at her site along the Oconto River at Holtwood campground, which is just a few miles down the river from where we used to live.  Actually we had just camped there a few weeks ago as well. 

http://cityofoconto.com/Camping.html

We found Judy's campsite and got to finally meet in person.  Steve snapped a pic of us, and even with Judy's eyes closed, it still is a good pic of two rv blogger people finally meeting up in person. 

 

While we were waiting for her sister and brotherinlaw to arrive, it started to rain. Ack!  Well, instead of ducking and running back to our car, the neighbors on the site across the road invited us all to come and hide out under their awning. Bring our lawn chairs and dogs, while staying dry. How nice was that?  So we got to visit with them, (they are summer seasonal at Holtwood and winter seasonal to Texas)  and we got to visit with Judy as well.  How fun was that... while the rain poured down.

Soon Judy's sister and brotherinlaw arrived in their motorhome.  We got to meet them and visit for a bit until the rain stopped.  They needed to get parked and leveled and start their dinner.... so we said our goodbyes and headed over to the other campsites where more friends were waiting for us.  Judy and her family were going to head up to the U.P. of Michigan for a tour around and more camping.

We headed over to the other side of the campground.  There was a large group of Excel brand campers having a group campout gathering.  Our friend John was part of that group.  Although he sold his Excel, he is still part of the group even with his fancy dancy resort on wheels, his Vilano by Tiffen.  John also adopts the elderly female shelties from the Wisconsin Sheltie Rescue and gives them wonderful fur-ever homes. He likes the old girl ones who need a gentle place to rest their heads and live out their doggie lives in comfort and peace, with good food, kind words, and lots of love.  Right now he has three elderly elegant gals who are loving the good life with John.

Our mutual friend Ginny was also meeting up with us and had her two sheltie dogs along.  Ginny is a rescue worker with the Wisconsin Sheltie Rescue and is the one who transported Binney to us from her foster home in Lower Michigan over to Wisconsin so we could adopt her.

We brought along Finney and Binney of course, and they all had to wag and sniff and check out each other's butts once we got into John's mega fancy RV.  It's "dog friendly" and all of them made themselves at home.

Ginny's Ms. Clarabell and Mr. Sparky 

came to visit for the week as well! 

We soon had shelties everywhere, 

of every color

and they all had a good visit 

while the grownups talked too. 

Here is our friend Ginny with her Mr. Sparky....  he is a happy and fluffy little guy who adores the woman who rescued him and made him healthy again.

Ginny is a miracle worker with rehabbing the rescue does with good diets and healthy care and ministrations of love and tenderness.  Both of her dogs needed a lot of attention to get them where they are today.

Can you believe this is the same dog???? 

We had a nice visit with all of the dogs... and Ginny and John.  We had to get a move on and get them all settled in for while we were gone.  We were going out to eat with the whole Excel group and had reservations at a nearby restaurant. In an RV, you always want to make sure your dogs aren't barking or causing a commotion while you leave the RV.  Some tricks we learned over the years is to close all the windows, turn up a tv or radio loud enough to drown out outside noises, and pull the shades or curtains.  Lots of treats scattered around, a few toys, a few doggie beds and fresh water is a must. 

Since our dogs were new to the group, we decided to take ours along with us on the way to the restaurant.  Our daughter Erin and soninlaw Waylen live only 2 blocks from the restaurant.  So we begged them and our little granddaughter Claire to babysit our two dogs for us!  She kept a close eye on them, for sure.

We met up with all the Excel group,

 as well as our other Sheltie Rescue friends,

Roz and Gary.  

They have an elderly rescue dog, Charlie, who stayed home this time. 

Gary, Steve and John 

on the guy's side of the table:

Roz, Ginny and myself 

on the girls side of the table: 

After a big meal, and lots of laughs, we headed on out. The rest of the group headed back to the campground, but we took the other two couples with us out to the Breakwater Park in Oconto. It's a long causeway that goes way out into the harbor.  At the end is a street light and turnaround.  Sometimes we have taken our other motorhome (the 27 ft Coachmen) out here and sat on a weekday for a picnic or even in the winter to sit and watch the ice fishermen.

We found it hilarious (after a few beers and wines) that the sign said "NO OUTLET"  on the post. Like--- where were you going to go but back up the causeway to the shore??? WHY would the sign be at the end of the causeway?  Not at the beginning?  LOL LOL

I am not sure if this link will work, it's a short video that Ginny shot of our dogs visiting in John's Taj Mahal of an RV. I am not so good at embedding links from facebook:

visit

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It was miserable and hot in Chilton today. For the middle of September, this weather really stinks!  We were up to 90 degrees, humid, and the mosquitoes can carry you away. We wanted to walk the dogs this morning, but got chewed up in just one minute.  Time to hide back inside. 

I felt it was too hot to cook dinner, so we opted to run up to the next town of Hilbert and get Mexican food.  I know the name sounds hokey, it's called "Mr. Taco".

  http://mrtacofoxvalley.com/

It was "buy one - get one free" margaritas... and we partook of their offer.  LOL .  I had a shrimp chimichanga and Steve had a chicken chimichanga.  It was wonderful, along with guacamole, chips and salsa.

 Steve said his was certainly good to the last bite! 

He also finished up the rest of my margarita.  He was a bit rosy in the cheeks, so he willingly handed over the keys so I could drive home!

As I type this evening, we have tons of heat lightning going on, and storms impending on the northern horizon.  I hope that we get a cool-down on the weather, and get a break from this heat.  I know it's no where near the troubles that people are having along the east coast, but we are not used to this in September in Wisconsin.   The local tv news said 2-3 months worth of mosquito eggs hatched all at once, so we have such a bumper crop of them swarming any time you head outdoors.  If you want to work on something outside (which we do have another Our Old House project in the works)  we can't stand it.  We can sit still with a Thermacell like when we did  the muffler yesterday.  But if we move around, its impossible unless we are slathered with DEET and wearing long sleeves and pants in the heat. 

Let's hope we get a good chill to kill off the skeeters. Until then, we will hide  inside.