It Gets Cold Up Here in the Mountains at Night

We usually don't come up to Silent Valley this late in the year, so I had forgotten how chilly it can get at night.  In an effort to save our propane, we try to stay warm with our little electric heater.  However, the one we had bought in Truth or Consequences back in 2013 was "on its last legs" and died a few weeks ago.  We had planned to replace it but just hadn't gotten around to it.  As a belated birthday gift, our very dear friend Joan gave us a couple Wal-Mart gift cards so we decided to use them to get us a new heater.  We chose a Honeywell 360 degree heater and it has been amazing!  Thanks again Joan, for your gift card that we put to good use.  It is much better than the heater we had before.  It's so good we usually don't even need to use the high setting!   

 

Many of the campers here at this time of year go ALL OUT on their Halloween decorations.  Here are a few pictures of some of the decorations

near us. Another site near us is "adorned" with numerous skulls and skeletons.  Yuck.  Jim says it's very eerie at night when he walks the dogs, but I can't get a good picture of that. 

 Jim took Millie over to see our neighbor's display, but as you can see, she wasn't really interested.

 Last year I posted several pictures of one site decorated with an over-abundance of weird and eerie things.  Those people have done the same set-up this year, so I didn't bother taking pictures again.  We put out a few little decorations, but we don't go overboard about it.  It is fun to put up some seasonal decor, but we are limited to one storage box for all of our decorations, plus our fold-able Christmas tree that we store under our bed.  As I said before, it gets pretty chilly up here.  Although we realize there are many places that get colder than it does here, WE choose  not to visit places like that.  Even Millie prefers to stay warm and toasty, as you can see here.

 I hope you can see the cute little owls all over her pajamas.  Even with her nice warm jammies on, she goes under the bed covers at night.  Willie has a wonderful dog bed with a sheep skin lining that is very nice and warm for him to sleep in.  
We have been enjoying our month up here in Silent Valley very much.  The first week, my brother Tony came up and stayed for three nights.  The second week Joan came to visit.  In my last blog I think I forgot to include pictures of the  lovely flowers that Joan brought to us.  Joan, you know you don't have to bring us flowers, but these were really special.  The scent was amazing and the color was delightful.  In case you can't tell, the vase is plastic, and when empty, it can be be flat so it doesn't take up much space.  That's just one  of the unique things we find when we go to Quartzsite in January.  
Our third week here included going out to lunch in Beaumont with my sister, Donna & her husband George.  

We went to a restaurant called Guys Italian Restaurant.  The food was quite nice and Donna even had some spumoni for dessert.  Unfortunately, before we left, a large party (of 14 people) arrived, and were so loud that we couldn't carry on a conversation, so we left.  It was a nice outing but it ended a little sooner than I expected it to.  
 Last week I saw a tiny trailer and I just had to take a picture of it.  We could never live in anything that small, but I still get a kick out of seeing the tear drop trailers.  This one is quite unique.

If you enlarge the picture you will see that it is very rugged and ready for off road camping!  Again, not something we will ever be doing, but still very interesting.   We really prefer having more living space and comfort.  


Many of us take our "creature comforts" for granted, and often forget about those who must try to survive without many things we all enjoy.  Not only are the holidays of Thanksgiving and Christmas coming very soon...........colder weather is also coming.  Survival for the less fortunate becomes even more difficult.  There is always something we can do for homeless people and animals.  How often do you stop by a coffee shop and spend several dollars on a fancy cup of coffee?  Could you give up your high priced coffee to use that same amount of  money to buy blankets for people living in homeless shelters?  You can also buy pet food for animal shelters.  You might volunteer to feed the less fortunate at food banks.  You can also volunteer at a local veterans hospital.  Another way to help the less fortunate is to sign up to make a monthly donation to a worthwhile organization.  Examples of such would include The Wounded Warrior Project, St. Jude's Children's Hospital, The Shriner's Hospital or the Salvation Army. Most of these ask for a donation commitment of only $19.00/month, which almost any of us could afford.  We have also made donations to the American Lung Association and the America Cancer Society.  The Humane Society desperately needs donations to keep animals alive and safe.  Please let this be the year that you commit to helping the less fortunate, be they two legged or four legged friends.  God has blessed all of us with so much that it's only right that we find ways to give back and help others.

Have a great day and a very happy holiday season ahead.  😊