The Old Dog Goes Camping

(and no, I don't mean your father.)

On the day after Independence Day we got up at 2:45 a.m. to drive Luke to the airport for his 6 a.m. flight to San Diego. I wish I had gotten a picture of him in his crisp Navy summer whites before he got on the plane, but I was too sleepy to think of it until later. We did have a last minute packing crisis, but Luke caught his flight. He reported later that he got upgraded to first class on the leg to Chicago, along with two other guys also bound for CORTAMID. We've heard from him a couple of times and all sounds well so far. He didn't take his computer along, but maybe he'll get a chance to post a report somehow while he's there. From what we hear, his first week was Submarines, and so far, he's having fun.

Then Dad and I drove north to the St. Lawrence River, with Panda in the back of the Subaru, and went exploring. We'd never been to the Thousand Islands, so we drove to Alexandria Bay and then followed the St. Lawrence River up to Massena, where we spent the night camping at Robert Moses State Park, on the banks of the St. Lawrence River at the northernmost tip of New York, with Canada just across the water. Here's Panda, on his very first camping trip, guarding the very nice little tent that we bought at Herb Phillipson's for the staggering sum of something like $40:

There are two dams at Robert Moses State Park, along with the Eisenhower Lock. We watched a ship pass through the lock and took a walk to one of the dams (look closely to spot Dad and Panda):


It was a peaceful evening and (almost) a peaceful night, except when Panda tried to leap through the tent screen at two a.m. to catch whatever was on the picnic table eating the marshmallows I forgot to pack away. Other than that, he was a very good Camping Dog. He enjoyed lying by the picnic table and gazing vigilantly at the other campers who strolled past.
The next day, we drove down into the Adirondacks to Higley Flow State Park in South Colton, on the Raquette River. Now, THIS was a nice place to camp, with ripe raspberries all around the tent site, pretty woods all around us, a troop of cheery Girl Scouts who fell in love with Panda just up the hill, and the river flowing past just a short walk away.

Panda made a friend here. Or possibly an enemy. A chipmunk started scolding him fiercely from a tree and Panda was just transfixed. He stared in horror, or awe, without moving a single muscle, while the chipmunk shouted and swore and scrambled down to within a foot or two of his nose, then fled back up the tree, then scurried back down again, still cursing out all dogs in Chipmunk Language, for a long,
long,
long time. Finally, he got a little tired.


But he didn't stop staring. You can watch it for yourself, in fact. Make sure your sound is on, because the chipmunk is mostly audible rather than visible -- but it does make a dramatic entrance toward the end:


The next day, we hiked up Azure Mountain. It's a short hike, only a mile each way, but quite steep and rocky. At the bottom of the trail we passed a large pile of rocks with a sign asking each hiker to take a couple to the top for use to help control erosion on the trail. Naturally, one or two stones weren't enough for your dad. He filled up Caleb's skiboot pack with a whole bunch of rocks and marched right up the mountain with them. Here's the load:

The pack was ridiculously heavy and I suggested a few times as we scrambled up that he might drop off a few of his stones here and there -- but no, it was all the way up or nuthin'. And he made it, too, all the way up to the pile at the top:


As you can see, Panda got there too. They may try to tell us he's an old dog, and at 11 and a half he does move more carefully than he used to. But he scrambled up that mountain, leaping over boulders and scrabbling up the slippery, narrow, twisting path, as eagerly as though he were nothing more than a pup. Here's the proof -- Panda at the geological summit marker:

Sadly, those dark spots you see on the rocks are just what they look like -- raindrops. We had climbed Azure Mountain because we were promised spectacular views of the High Peaks at the top -- but we didn't see 'em. Just as we reached the top, the rain began. It spattered at first, then showered harder, then settled into a true, hard, slanting rain. We sheltered under the fire tower for a while, hoping that it would stop, but no such luck -- once it began it kept right on. It rained all the way down the mountain. We were soaked to the skin by the time we slid and slithered down. It kept right on raining while we drove back to the campsite, through the evening, all night long, and well into the next day. Back at the campsite, we found puddles in our pretty little tent, which hadn't yet had its seams sealed. This required some OM-style creative thinking as to how to spend a relatively warm and surprisingly cozy evening by the fire:

Yes, that's the Subaru. It makes for very nice campfire seating. Thankfully, the tent proved to be dry enough to sleep in comfortably, thanks to our self-inflating foam sleeping pads that lifted our sleeping bags out of the puddles. The next morning it was still raining. We packed up and drove home -- where we found that an exceptionally brazen woodchuck had tunneled right under the house while we were gone. Panda, a mighty hunter after his weekend in the Adirondack wilderness, grabbed it. But we didn't let him eat it.

Panda had a great time camping, and so did we. So much so, in fact, that we're looking for a chance to do it again. Your father is getting very, very interested in www.rv.net . . . .