Small Town Hound: Destination Points North

Sometimes it’s nice to just get away—at least that is what my humans said as they loaded us all into the back seat and headed north. Although we often all travel together, this trip Mars—grey around the muzzle and slowing down—stayed with his younger human (who now has his own place) and Winnie and I had the back seat to ourselves. It still was not quite enough space for me and I was, admittedly, a little grouchy on the way there. 

There, as it turned out, was one of the greatest adventures to date, as there was room to roam. I spent time with Winnie sniffing around in our cabin (*The Apple) while our humans unloaded what seemed like a house full of stuff—humans sure don’t travel light. Then we all took a walk down to the lake. This lake—like the lake I recently walked on near our house—was solid; you could walk right out on it. There were these things I have never seen before that would cross the lake sometimes, making humming sounds (my humans called them snowmobiles). Things looked and felt pretty similar to where we live, and I quickly settled in.

The next day was when the fun began. We went first to some trails near Rock Lake and walked for a long time through the snow and woods. My humans used big flat shoes. I love the snow and bound around through it with relative ease. I was always in the lead. At one point we crossed a big trail and my human stopped me. I had to sit and wait while one of the snowmobiles went by. I also spent some time finding my one human who is always getting lost. He had gotten off the trail and was in behind a big rock. I went back and got the other human like I’ve been taught and showed her where he was. I am not much of an animal chasing dog, but on every trail, there were many animal tracks and scents, and Winnie was especially excited about this. 

We did not encounter many people on the trails when walking (unlike at home when we often see people on our walks), but we met two people on our last night there, while out on the lake walking. They had the big flat shoes on too and were very friendly. I ran up and said hello, and they were super cool with that. They said they had traveled from a place called the Catskills (sounds a bit ominous) and we all visited a bit. I stopped back by their place the next morning hoping to run into them again. 

There were not many places open at all, so when not out on trails or out on Indian Lake walking, we were in our cabin just relaxing by the fire. It was fun being there although I was missing Mars some. I would have liked to see more people and go into a few more places like I do in my adventures at home, but it was nice being out there where I could explore the wilds a bit. Still, I got to see some cool things: there was a thing that my humans said looked like a dinosaur along one trail, that was smiling like she was super happy; and while we were in the car I saw a large person out the window, bigger than any humans I know. 

We stopped at another place on the way back to get out of the truck a bit. It was a place named Inlet and the trail there was fun. This gave us all one more chance to stretch out and walk a bit. Our final stop was to pick up Mars. He looked like he had enjoyed his time. He does pretty long walks at home, but he would have had a tough time with the deeper snow and longer walks we took. Overall it was a grand adventure and I hope we go there again when it is a bit warmer. 

*Camp Driftwood at Indian Lake–www.goodcabins.com/