Life at the Rancheria

We're settling in for night 2 of 2 at Jackson Rancheria. Details of this trip, though there aren't many, are at Bullwinkle's Place. The headline for this blog, however, is: WE STILL HAVE TO GO BACK TO WORK ON MONDAY.

With thoughts of quitting on Monday dancing through our heads, we checked out the casino late this afternoon. We are so not casino people, mind you. But, we thought it was worth a small investment to see if, by some astronomically unlikely chance, we could hit a jackpot that would make our post-holiday return to work optional. Fifteen dollars and fifteen minutes at the quarter slots proved otherwise. Oh well, you can't win if you don't play.

We're so glad we planned this little two-night getaway for the tail end of our holiday break. It was just what we needed to start our fulltiming year. It's a good feeling to start the year in our moose!

This has also been our first real foray into cold weather camping. Here in the Sierra Nevada foothills it's been chilly. Last night's low was a nippy 28-degrees. Sometime in the very wee hours, our awning retracted on its own, which gave us quite a stir. After a few puzzling moments, I remembered reading that the thing automatically comes in when the temperature approaches freezing. (I honestly never thought that would apply to us!) We checked our outdoor thermometer and, viola, we were there. Mystery solved.

We've also learned lots about how our heat pump and gas furnace work. Tonight we'll likely need them both as the forecast calls for another night in the 20s, and the temp was below freezing before we started dinner. Boris has a big to-do before we sleep tonight -- unhook the water hose.

With a pot of hearty red beans and rice on the stove, we're ready to concede our gambling losses and enjoy another night in our comfy cozy moose. As Boris pointed out, we've already spent more nights in 2009 in the RV than we have out of it.

Let's hope that's the beginning of a long-running trend.