Happy Saturday before Father’s Day 2020. We took off from our York campsite on Friday afternoon. It was time to give our hosts a break from us.
We stopped at Hannaford’s in North Berwick, a block from the first house we owned, to pick up some supplies. We pulled into Bunganut around 5-ish. The first order of business was draining the tanks. Our spot in York is wonderful but we are basically boondocking so part of the reason for our “holiday” was to dump the tanks, hookup to some fresh water and some delicious electricity! The generator has been great but I haven’t been very diligent about stressing over the batteries. I have not adhered to the “50% rule” by any means!
the dumping went well so then it was time for our first campground hang with the new rig. On the way through to the dump station we passed our site. I went back in the opposite direction so we pulled up with the site on our right. I planned to back in. Pam got out and I started backing in, at an angle, up hill. I hadn’t gone too far before I heard a loud snap and somene yell, “awning!”. I stopped and got out and, sure enough, I had dinged the awning off a tree and she was a little “twisted” to the fore side of the camper. We talked a bit, made a few turns and twists and I got ‘er into the site eventually.
The awning is not too bad (you can check it out in the picture) but she’s going to need some attention! We have a plan for our next campground landing. Okay, gotta go jump in the lake. I’ll tell you about Ruby later…
06/22/20 – We’re back in York but I promised to tell you about Ruby. If you’ve had the chance to meet us and hang with us a bit, you’ve probably met Ruby the stray cat who managed to get an invitation into our house about 10+ years ago and has been with us ever since. Every other cat we’ve had before Ruby became a victim of Beech Ridge Road traffic, along with one of our dogs. Ruby is an outdoor cat but she’s a survivor!
When it came time to move, Ruby “came with”. Now she’s a camper cat and she’s doing well in York. She wanders a bit but never too far. The trip to Bunganut was her first real camping trip.
Initially, she stayed on the campsite. We arrived in early evening and she was cool all night. Campfire, no problem. She mostly laid around in site. When it came time for bed, she opted to stay outside. She’s done this many times in York and she’s always there the next morning or cries out loud enough in the night for one of us to wake up and let her in.
The next morning she was nowhere to be seen. We ate breakfast outside by the camper, nothing. We went for a swim and then walked around the campsite, nothing. Nowhere to be seen. We eventually ate lunch and she didn’t show up then either.
We speculated that the campers in the site below us may have catnapped her. The woman in the crew was very vocal about how she wanted a camp cat and how amazed she was that Ruby hung around. Could they have possibly taken off with her? They were really talkative the day before but today they didn’t say a word while they were packing up. Hmmmm…
We also thought someone may have thought she was a stray, she is, but, you know, she’s our stray now! She has no collar so someone could have thought that and taken her in. We were sad but, if she wound up with a nice new family, at least she’d be happy! We had pretty much written her off.
We were playing cards later on and I looked over on the hill about 40 feet away and, lo and behold, who should be climbing up the embankment but our favorite stray cat, Ruby. I walked over and said her name, she glanced in my direction but kept marching up the hill. I called her a few more times, she meowed, then marched, so I picked her up and brought her over to the campsite. She marched around a bit, took a few sniffs of her litter box and reckoned she must be home. We got her some food and she settled back in rather rapidly.
She snoozed a lot for the rest of the day but Saturday night, she slept inside the camper! Sunday, she hung around for father’s day. We took off by 11AM and got back to York around 3-ish after a stop in Alfred for some lunch.
