Camping and deer. A lot of deer.

Deer own this place.

Breakfast, lunch and dinner say the dogs.

See above caption.

Kinley

Baxter takes the front, Kinley takes the back.

This tether is stupid.

I just wanna talk to you...

Making plans.

Chicken, probably wished it was venison.

Big Meadows, Shenandoah Park. Lousy with deer. So many, many deer. In fact, Gabriel used my entire camera battery taking pics of deer. And my car. I managed a couple of the tent and the dogs.

The dogs really exceeded my expectations and were a joy to have. They thought the tethers were stupid. They also thought the deer looked tasty. But they had excellent manners. Kinley was a little growly but Baxter basically rolled his eyes and kept mum. At night I had to put the flashing red light on their collars, more to avoid startling anyone since they were pretty much invisible in the dark.

You can see how they placed themselves in the camp, they always faced opposite directions unless someone approached and then they stood like lions at the gate. Deer, that was hard for them, but they did pretty well.

At one point Kinley got whiny and I thought he wanted to go in the tent with Gabriel but he bolted as soon as I started to zip it up and ran off. We were on the edge of the campground and he went off about half a soccer field and wouldn't return. So i sort of stood there to see what he was doing rather than chase after him.

Sure enough he had to poop. Funny, neither would soil the campsite. So I worried about them peeing on the tent for naught. So he's looking at me the whole time and I'm imagining all kinds of scenarios where he runs off. It would be really well, not good, if he ran up to someone and they reacted in a way that frightened him (or he flat out got indignant) and then he frightened them and it would all be downhill after that.

But, right when he was done, he ran flat out, right back to me. I was REALLY proud. It was funny because the whole time he's looking at me like he's worried being out there but he can't bear to do his business any closer.

But, he's going to have to learn to poop on lead as that's a pretty big rule breaker there. There was no one anywhere near us at the time, but that won't always be the case.

Baxter was Baxter, outstanding, serious and just lovely to have around. We all walked a LOT. Gabriel had a wonderful time and I was actually sad to leave. We'll go up again next month, God willing, and camp until the Winter.

Not a bad drive, about two and a half hours, but mostly because the speed limit is about 25 to 30 for about half the trip.

Sleep in the E the first night because Gabriel couldn't handle the bug noise. Tent the second, but between my nervousness and Kinley's growling, I think we'll be sleeping in the E from now on until we can get a little pop up or something.

Gabriel was funny, he was very worried about deer ticks. Then there was a coyote warning sign on one of the trails so the whole time he's asking me things like 'Which one would be stronger in a fight? The dogs or a coyote?" and 'Which would be worse, a bear or a coyote?' and for some reason "Which is more deadly if thrown by a cave troll, a boulder or a tree?"

I didn't recall seeing a cave troll warning but I guess it was topical on some level.