Katie here.   Mama says she’s had a very long and emotional week and she’s exhausted and too tired, she says, to write a blog about our camping adventure last weekend.  But I know that many of you are waiting impatiently to read all about it, so I have taken over the blog!  It should be my blog anyway if you ask me; I can not imagine what would be more interesting or more important than yours truly.  I am, of course, the center of the universe.

Ahem.

Mama took last Friday off so that we could go way up north and set up camp for a two night stay at a luxury state park.  I thought it was luxury anyway, as mama gave me my regular big pillow and then two of hers just so I could see out the little vent in the front of the tent any time I thought I heard something.  I like to know what’s going on.  That way I don’t have to bark at stuff.  And I don’t get yelled at.  It works out.

My princess bed.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.  Our drive up north took about 4 hours and I was an incredibly wonderful traveler!  Mama put my crate on the back seat and I could see her all the time which made me very happy.  Plus she stopped at all these wonderful rest stop places that had really cool smells.  I never wanted to get back in the car after I did my job, so mama let me walk around for awhile.

Vacations are like that you know, no reason to rush.  Right?  The best rest stop was the one only a couple of miles from the exit for the state park.  It had this little path going back into the woods from the dog run area and it was so green and wonderful in there!  Except for the mosquitoes.    And the fact that mama put her foot into a gopher hole and fell and hurt her hand.  But other than that it was all fun!

We’re up north now!

Mama says she knows she’s ‘up north’ when she starts to see the ferns on the forest floor along the freeway.  They make her smile.  And when my mama smiles, I smile too.  It’s sort of contagious.  You’ll notice I smiled a lot on this trip.

We got to our campsite a little early but that was OK, it gave us time to set up camp and blow up mama’s bed without annoying anyone with the noisy pump.  Then we walked around the campground.  It was pretty empty that first afternoon.  In fact, all weekend I bet the campground wasn’t half full, which worked out fine for us!  We had a cozy site tucked back into the woods which would have been really cool.  Did I mention mosquitoes?

Friday evening we tried to go do one of the hikes that are in the park, through old pine trees, and we got about 100 feet in and had to race out of there.  We were getting eaten alive and mama was wearing bug spray!  Mama says I looked like a bug cloud in the shape of a sheltie.  There were several short hikes we would have liked to do during the weekend but the bugs were ferocious.

Luckily mama had plans Saturday for us to go over to Elk Rapids, a town about an hour west of where we were staying, to visit her blogger friend Gerry who gave us a tour of the town.  We saw old houses and churches and we walked through town and let people admire me.  I even got to go inside a store because the owner  thought I was beautiful.  What can I say?   I get that a lot.  This is a bridge over to the library in town, isn’t it cool?

The princess goes to the library.

We went down to the beach too, and watched a bunch of guys in a big canoe replicate an historical landing.   I wasn’t sure what was going on, but I knew I was hot, so I took my mama over to the river to get a drink.

Ah…..

This was a big deal for me as I don’t generally get my feet wet and I never drink out of a river.  It’s just not something a princess does.  But you gotta do what you gotta do…right?

Then we went to a park that a lot of beautiful and interesting sculpture in it.  I liked it because there was shade on most of it, except those that were out on the beach.  It was all interesting and I got to sniff a lot of new stuff!

Shade and color is good.

Then we went to Gerry’s house and I got to meet her duo…Cowboy and Sadie.  I didn’t like that my mama kept saying how adorable Cowboy was and what beautiful eyes Sadie had.  She’s my mama and I want her all to myself.  Plus I had a hard time keeping track of them, they were so fast and there were two of them and only one of me.  So I got up on my mama’s lap while she and Gerry sat and talked a little bit.  Mama was really glad she got to meet Gerry and the gang.  I liked Gerry a lot but I’m not so sure about those furry ones…maybe next time I won’t be so nervous about the whole thing.

The duo.

I slept all the way back to camp, and when we got there we escaped into the tent where I slept some more.  All this traveling wears a girl out!

Zzzzzzz…..

Sunday morning we did a little walking around the campground and then mama piled everything into the car as fast as she could to get us away from the mosquitoes.  I really didn’t want to go home.

Where did my pillow go mama!?

I stood in our empty camp site a long time until she made me get in the car.  But then I slept a lot on the way home.

And where did my tent go?!!

Once I made it into my house I was the old Katie girl — full out barking for a long time just letting my mama know I had a good time and thanking her for taking me with her on the big camping adventure.  I was a really really good girl.  I didn’t bark once on the trip up or the trip back.  I slept all night both nights, though I did get my mama up by 5:30 every morning.  But then we went back to bed for a bit.  I sat around the camp while she was working on stuff and didn’t whine, and when she asked me to do something I did it right away.  Sometimes.

Can we go again soon mama?

Yep, I’m hoping my mama makes reservations for us at another campground soon!  Maybe one that doesn’t have so many mosquitoes though.  This is way more fun than sleeping in the back yard and I can’t wait to go again!  Mama failed two nights at making a campfire, she blames the wood.  I think she needs more practice.  What do you think?

Where should we go next?

Me and my mama.