It’s 1027 here at Valley of the Rogue, and it’s a beautiful day. The air is crisp and little Max is on guard, searching for intruders, squirrels mainly. He almost caught one yesterday but his leash was too short.

Sitting here, after reading the news headlines again for the umpteenth time, I’m saddened by the state of our nation and the world. When I started writing this silly blog I vowed to not ever get political and I’m going to stick to it. But, I see no reason why I can’t share a little bit about my feelings with regard to events.

Please understand that I’m sharing opinions. What’s coming is me sharing my beliefs, right or wrong.

First, the world population has always been at war with itself with fighting between the Good and the Bad, or Good vs. Evil. It’s nature at its best, survival of the fittest, strong beats weak. Predators are everywhere just waiting to gobble up the prey, but even at the lowest level of such domination there are limits.

When the predator is no longer hungry, the prey is safe and can go on about life without fear. Until the predator gets hungry again. The prey knows the cycle and can prepare for the chaos coming to disrupt their peace.

Going up the food chain to the top, humans are more brutal than, say the hungry lion. Once a human is fed with whatever serves to satisfy their appetite, some of them want more. Those who are more aggressive than others draw to them the weak who feed off the remnants of their waste. This process creates a pyramid with the most dominate predator at the top. They will never be satisfied because when they relax their guard there is another predator waiting in the wings to take their place.

Sadly, in such a situation it’s difficult for everyone to live a peaceful existence. The winners leave a scattered path of victims in their wake. Short of attempting to eliminate the dominate aggressor, there doesn’t seem to be a path to peace. Many have tried in the past, and as far as I know, none have succeeded. There are many volumes written about the winners and losers. Surely all of us have read some of them.

OK, enough of that. I’m going to curl up in my little cocoon and revert to my natural state of being. Yes, I’m going to hide like a good little prey and pray.

Before leaving on this trip I purchased a salt gun. I guess you could call it an Asalt weapon. Yes, it shoots salt and absolutely obliterates unfortunate little flies who cause me, and my lovely spouse, grief. They were flying around us in the RV during dinner last night and I wanted to shoot them there, but Diane didn’t want bits of a fly landing in here food. She made a face to exhibit her unwillingness to be part of this travesty. So, I waited until bedtime and took car of the critters in the bathroom before retiring. I’m thinking it might be an adequate weapon to use against invaders. Just shoot them in the eye.

Gotta stop after turning that corner. Also, it’s almost time to unplug and head south to Redding. See you there.

Redding, CA. We finally made it to the Elks lodge in town, found a spot in the RV area, tied things up then went into the lodge for dinner. It was Taco Tuesday, of course, and it was very good.

Although we made it safely over the Siskiyou it wasn’t easy. First, the RV heated up so we disconnected the car and Diane drove it to the top. Even without the car, the RV wanted to overheat but we finally made it to the top, going very slow.

I took advantage of being stopped at the top and took Max for a short walk so he could mark his presence. There was so much trash laying around and it must have disturbed him because he stuck his nose in the air and led me back to the bus. So I let him inside and went back to reconnect the car. We encountered another bunch of large hills that required us slow way down, but we finally made it to Redding and our destination.

Even though we made it safely to Redding, I didn’t feel the victory for two reasons. Firstly, I was unable to make the Dish function. It just wouldn’t work. Maybe if I could have put the antenna on the RV roof, it might have worked OK, but that wasn’t possible because, Secondly, I forgot to take the ladder extension off the back of the RV so when I sped over the 2nd large hump in the road leaving the Rogue, it must have bounced off and escaped. I didn’t realize it was missing until decided I needed to put the antenna on the roof.

Since the dish didn’t work I tried scanning for local channels but that didn’t work either, So, we were TV-less making my day not such a success as it should have been.

With no TV to entertain us Diane rerouted tomorrow’s trip because Chico was far too close and the day after to Merced would have been brutal. Now we’re skipping Chico and going to Woodland, CA where we will spend the night at the Yolo County Fairgrounds. I’m betting they will have a totally unobstructed view of the southern sky that will allow us access to the satellites necessary to use the Dish. If it doesn’t work again, I’m switching to DirecTV, or maybe get an Elon Musk sky satellite thingie. I might swing by an RV store and see if they have a ladder extension that will work for us. If only I had taken the extension off … if only I had obeyed the speed limit leaving the park … if only I had seen that hump coming … if only …

Now it’s time for bed. Diane isn’t mad at me any longer, so I suspect I’ll be safe laying quietly by her side.

See you tomorrow.