Katie here.    You all know how my mama works too much and is tired all the time and ignores me right?  When she should be focused on me all the time, as due a princess of my standing.  Right.  So anyway, my mama and I haven’t done anything fun in a long time – I think maybe ten thousand dog years.   Well Friday night after work she told me that we were going to go on a big adventure and I was so excited I jumped on her and kissed her face and ran to the door and then she said “Not TONIGHT silly girl!” and I got all sad and depressed and stuff.

But I remembered.

And Saturday morning when my mama said she had to run some errands I jumped all around and cried and wiggled my cute butt and as she was going out the door I yipped at her and made sad puppy eyes and she finally said “Really?  You want to go on errands?  Well OK.”  And I got to GO with my mama!  I was so happy!  This was the adventure I’d been dreaming of!

Or not.

We went and mailed a box, and then we went to the car wash (I’d never been through a car wash before and I was sort of scared, but I didn’t let her know because I was afraid she wouldn’t take me on rides again if I acted like a scared baby) and then we went to the bank, but I was in my crate in the back so I didn’t even get a biscuit, and then finally we went to the store and I got to go inside and we bought two bags of my Blue Buffalo food!  That was fun!  But she seemed to be in a hurry and I didn’t get to walk around the store much, it was in, get the food, and then I’m back in my crate in the car!  Geeze.  Pretty cheesy adventure mama!

But guess what?  That wasn’t really the adventure at all!  That was just stuff mama had to do to get ready to go on the real adventure!  She started packing the car when we got home and pretty soon we were off!

We went up north!  And we got to visit every single rest stop along the way.  I made sure to whine just as we were approaching a rest stop, so she’d stop and I’d get to get out and walk around and read all the pee-mail left by other dogs.  It’s so much fun.  That would have been enough of an adventure all by itself, but it wasn’t the best part!

 

The best part was we went to Hartwick Pines, the state park we camped in last summer.  We got to walk on some of the trails that the mosquitoes ran us out of last summer!  No mosquitoes this weekend, no siree!   I even got to see some cross county skiers!  I’d never seen them before.  They thought I was cute.  Well of course.

 

We walked quite a ways on the trails, but then the sun started to go down and we were both hungry so we went to our hotel!  A hotel!  I’ve never been to one before!  I was so excited!  Except for the stairs.  The lady put us on the second floor and, as most of you know, I don’t do stairs.  Being a princess and all.  So mama huffed and puffed and carried me and all my paraphernalia up the stairs.  I think she packed more for me than she did for her!  She brought a sheet to put over the bedspread, but I mostly slept on the other bed.  Or the floor.  I like my space, don’t you know.

 

She brought my water dish and my food dish and a pillow and my supper and my breakfast.  I think she only packed clean underwear and some socks for herself.  I guess that’s because she’s not a princess.

I made her get lots of steps and stairs in each day as I asked to go out several times once we were in our room.  Most notably at 4:30 in the morning.  And again at 6 a.m.  It was really cold out, so once I got out there I wasn’t sure exactly why we were there, which caused me to have to sniff everything in the giant parking lot just to make sure it was safe before I anointed it.  A princess has to be careful you know.

When we left the hotel in the morning, a couple of hours earlier than my mama planned because I was impatient and tired of hanging around, it was zero degrees outside (that’s -17.7 C) and the snow crunched a lot.  Mama wanted to go back to the park and walk on some more trails.  It was going to be a sunny day and she was hoping for blue skies to go with the perfect white snow.  But it was so cold.

 

We walked a little bit and of course my feet were cold, so I held up my paw and asked to be picked up.  My mama picked me up and hugged me and we stood still in the deep woods.  We were the only ones there and there wasn’t another sound at all.  It was totally silent.  So wonderful.  My mama got a bit weepy then.  She said it was just because it was so beautiful and so quiet and she doesn’t have a lot of quiet in her life, and she didn’t want to leave the woods.  I thought maybe she was weepy thinking about carrying me back to the car, so I asked to get down and I pranced all the way back.  Some of the time we were running and laughing.  People would have thought we were crazy, but there was no one there so it didn’t matter.  Besides, they would have been right.

Mama wanted to keep driving north, but she knew we had to come back home.  We couldn’t wait for it to get warmer, and we weren’t sure it would anyway, so we headed back to the freeway.  As soon as we were on the road I fell asleep.  At least mama says I did.  I think I was just resting my eyes.  Shelties never let their guard down you know.  Anyway, I woke up as soon as we were near a rest stop, so I got to stop and explore it, but it was the only one I made her stop at.

 

I can be good when I want to be.

And now we’re home and I’m going to go take a serious nap.  This was just the best adventure I’ve had with my mama since we went camping!  She says she’s already got a camp site reserved on the shores of Lake Michigan for next summer.  She takes me to the best places!

My mama.  Adventure planner extraordinaire!

I think I’ll keep her.