Dog Days

One of my deepest wishes is to take both the horse and the dogs to Vedauwoo and ride for the day. The dogs love going and are getting much better about listening to voice commands, that I think it might be a possibility next year. In the meantime, it is an either/or sort of situation. This past Saturday, we took the dogs.

 They love being in the front seat in J's lap for the drive.

Usually, it is a rotating lap dog dance. This pic was taken during Lily's one turn.

Skittle is a jealous little beast.

Our first offroad adventure with Antiope.

Unfortunately, it would end with a long scratch on the driver side of the car.

Wounded before our first oil change.

 We parked at the base of these rocks.

This was the area where we were caught in the massive snow storm years ago (like 15).

 The view from our vantage point.

Climbing up on the rocks.

The dogs ran circles around us, but stayed within view for the majority of the day.

Came back immediately when called.

 My heart place.

The dogs handed the rock climbing like pros.

They treated the slanted rock like it was flat.

 They also got pretty good at listening to hand directions.

I was able to point them in the direction we were heading and they would range out in front of us.

 Tia came with us.

Silhouettes against the sky

 There were a lot of trees down. The forest here is going through it's dying and rebirth process.

It really does feel like you are on top of the world sometimes.

 More rocks

 So much rock

 Some of it was too difficult to climb.

And impossible to take the dogs through/over/up/down

So much fun to clamber across

 I could ride forever out there.

 Bushwhacking through the trees.

There's two dogs in there somewhere. And people.

Lily playing chase games with sister

The two of them together

 Alerting on Tia and J coming through the trees.

There be giants in these rocks. If you look carefully, you can see his squished head, held down by another giant's foot.

Best rock formation of the day.

 Hiking back through Aspen to where we left the car

 The only good way to spend the rest of the afternoon.

 I could have fallen asleep, except that would have been rude.

Sitting in the hammock sideways in order to still be able to see what is happening.

 It got pretty cold. A fleece blanket would not have been remiss.

The temps were in the mid-50's, but the wind gusts were 40 mph and the wind chill made it feel more like mid-40's.

 J sitting in her hammock

 Tia in hers.

Dogs tied up

I have to tell you, we had a first. We were in what was obviously our "camp" with two Malinois dogs off leash. A couple of city slickers pulled up and parked their car ten feet from ours (in the middle of National forest - it wasn't a freaking parking lot), pulled out their little snack dog and proceeded to walk past us to climb the rocks. It goes against every camping/hiking protocol and courtesy I've ever experienced. They are lucky we saw them coming and tied up the dogs.

The dogs were awesome and didn't even bark. Lily stood guard (she takes her job seriously) but did not jump or try to go after them. She listened and eventually came to lay down.

 They didn't ever relax though.

 Being good dogs

Eventually, we headed home due to the chill. My hands were icey and it just wasn't so much fun to lay in the hammock. We loaded up and headed out.

This would be where I got to close to a mean bush to my left and scratched the hell out of my new car.

Good thing I love camping.

 Skittle laying in Tia's lap for the drive home.

Lily sacked out on the dog bed next to them.

It was a very good day.