The weather here yesterday was beautiful, cool and dry.  As evening descended I suddenly wanted to be camping, but it seemed like too much work to drag the tent up from the basement and accumulate all the pillows and blankets.  But husband said he’d help, so in the last few minutes of light we popped the tent up and loaded it with everything I needed to make it through the night.

Katie watched us put the tent up;  she was very excited because she loves to camp.  But she’s never camped in the little tent, not really enough room, and no little doggie window near the floor for her to keep track of the night’s comings and goings.  A couple of nights ago I slept in the little tent all by myself and had a wonderfully relaxing time sans dog.  This time I wasn’t going to get away with sneaking out the front door and creeping around the house so that she wouldn’t know.  She knew.

So Katie and I trooped out to the tent.  As usual she was in first, claiming the biggest pile of pillows for herself.  She’s such a pillow hog.  As we settled in she was restless, moving around and around the tent, plopping down, getting up, sighing, trying to see out the windows that were still zipped up.

Then I had a brilliant idea.  How about if I unzipped one of the windows so she could see out?

Turns out that is a WONDERFUL idea for both of us.  Suddenly we were sleeping in front of what seemed like a big picture window.  We both watched it get darker and listened to the birds heading home for the night.  The fireflies started to dance, the freeway noises lowered, and the frogs began to sing.  Katie curled up in a ball on her (two) pillows, let out a big sigh and fell asleep.  I drifted off too.

She was such a good girl all night.  While I had trouble getting comfortable she slept on, upside down, curled up against my side, or flat out by the wall.  She didn’t even bark when the guy with the noisy van drove by and threw the newspaper onto the driveway.

And this morning?   She didn’t want to go back inside!