Mocked by an Iceless Cooler

 Even with the days being different most of them usually just intertwine into each other and make for one really long day instead of 7 separate days! This week some very chilly showers have been taken, the weather is changing a little bit at a time each day but the winds that come through here can be a bit extreme...especially when you're 'nekkid' and wet!

[caption id="attachment_832" align="aligncenter" width="225"] Clean and pristine jellybean[/caption]

I cleaned our grill...didn't know it was that nasty. We actually had an interesting night the other night, okay... You know how we were trying out that new iceless cooler (Thermoelectric)? Well we bought it last Saturday, we plugged it into our system and it did really good the first 36 hours, it got down to 34 degrees...not too shabby! We did our other errands in Fresno (with sun hitting the solar the entire day) and headed back up the mountain. We kept it plugged in the first night into the next day and woke up to a mostly cloudy day, our solar was on a yellow light just about the entire day...not good. We unplugged the cooler during the night due to the temperatures being much cooler when the sun's not out. The next day was cloudy too and the solar barely caught up to a green light. We went through this for the next few days, plugging this thing in and unplugging that thing, until finally we were at a loss with yellow lights on the solar and having no cold food...we were going to have to return it. I think about the last night or so we were going to cook all of the chicken so it wouldn't go bad and actually J' was going to cook ME dinner! What a treat!! When he went to get the chicken (that we forgot to bag-out into different bags) out of the cooler, I guess it took him a minute to process what was going on. There was chicken juice all over the bottom of the cooler, like 2 inches thick. Thank goodness we just had sodas in there at that point. So he took the bag and rushed it over to the "kitchen" all the while it's pouring out of the bag everywhere...in the van, in front of where we open our side door, all the way to the grill, on top of the table, the grill, the garbage...it was a HUGE mess. He ended up making dinner very quickly due to all of our hundred thousand new yellow jacket friends that wanted to partake in our juice party! We ended up being prisoners in the van for the rest of the night due to the volume of the little buggers. The next morning I woke up and looked straight at the grill to see if they were still around...there were still loads of them, great! I got up, unhooked the grill from the propane and went to the other side of the rocks to clean it. I didn't have anything to really scrub it with, so I just got some of our Simple Green and some aluminum foil (for a scrubbie) and went to town (the foil actually worked). Boy, did she need it too! I figured this would be a good pre-cleanse before we take off in the next month or so anyway.

[caption id="attachment_834" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Pretty darn clean![/caption]

 So after our whole grill-chicken-yellow jacket thing and a lot of cleaning everywhere, we decided that the "cooler" has to go back, it's just sucking way too much power and it's just not for us. We would take it back in a couple of days, all of our meat is already cooked and we were waiting for a package to be delivered to Shaver Lake in the next couple of days so we could wait. The following day was pretty much full of boredom, there are just those days that nothing you do is fun or motivating and you just want it to be a new day or you want to be somewhere or do something different. We went down into the brush and walked around, probably a bit too comfortable with nothing but shorts and flops on. I mean, if there were snakes and goblins anywhere it would definitely be where we were walking, but being up here so long and not seeing anything you get a little too lax I think. We walked around, in bushes, through rocks and their crevices...I was actually pretty proud of myself for not freaking out. I was more scared of spiders than anything because those things are so small you can't even see them half the time then, you look over your shoulder and there they are sitting there, along for the ride....creepy!

[caption id="attachment_838" align="aligncenter" width="225"] In the brush[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_839" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Bug in the brush[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_840" align="aligncenter" width="300"] A different view of our camp site! From down unda'[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_841" align="aligncenter" width="225"] She's so cute![/caption]

After our hike through the woods, we sat for a little while longer and then J' wanted to go for another round of walking...probably the most "exercise" he's gotten in one day in a while (all he does is work!). We were just going to walk up to say hi to SoulRaven but when we got there, he wasn't there so we kept walking down to The Passion Post where "the town" was a buzzing! Everyone was there sitting around, chit-chatting.

They had all gone down to Shaver Lake for the day...our invitation was lost in the mail I think! It's all good, they invited us to go with them this coming Tuesday which I'm super super duper stoked about, I've been wanting to go to the lake this whole time but it's kind of hard with one vehicle which, even if I could have it for the day, would not be driving out of here myself...not on these rocks! J' always wants to work and I tell him he needs a mental break sometimes but he never wants to take it, so I'm stoked to go play with the other kids in the neighborhood, get some good sun and just take it all in from a different perspective! Oh and Miss Trish got us some awesome seasonings, what a sweetheart thinking of us like that! Thanks Miss Trish...love ya doll!

[caption id="attachment_844" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Our food even gets yummy stuff![/caption]

 We are planning on Fresno tomorrow to return that cooler so wish us luck and I'll let you know how it goes and what we get to put in its place. Tata for now my peeps.

PEACE