The "unofficial start of summer" was last weekend—the U.S. Memorial Day's three day (at least) weekend means a lot of people start out on road trips. Regular gas is about $3 a gallon here in North Texas, higher in some places, lower in only a few. I suppose people might choose to drive to places where they can then walk around or that provides it's own transit for customers, or to do things that cost less. Camping used to cost less, but now getting spaces in national parks, state parks, and national forests is difficult, often requiring a reservation.

Here in North Texas it is starting to warm up, as expected. The yard is still green for a little while longer, but when it gets really hot I usually only water the vegetable garden, giving very little to the turf. The idea is to water deeply but infrequently to save water.

It is time to set up the water tank for the dogs. The old Labrador retriever used to climb in for a cool down, but his hips are too arthritic now for that to happen. My old pitbull was the one who really loved climbing into the tank, and I have some old photos of the pit and the Lab in it together. The rest of the dogs have used it only as a place to get a drink of water.