I Survived Nature!...

More accurately, I survived nature with my dogs. Last weekend, my husband and I rented a cabin in the Hocking Hills, south of Columbus. Fabulous place, hope to go back someday. Anywho, the adventure begins on the drive down there. We've got a mid-size SUV, so there should be, theoretically, enough room for the cargo & the dogs with the seats down. Nala, our Golden Retriever, has no problems with this plan. She spreads out in the back and crashes. Randy, the Husky mix, eh, not so much. For whatever reason, he refuses to sit or lay down and proceeds to surf in the back as we're driving through Akron. Not good. Every turn of the vehicle and he's sliding around, making my hubby nervous. At a rest stop, we finally put one of the seats back up, and, all of a sudden, he's pleased as punch. Groovy.

Three-and-a-half hours later, we arrive at the cabin around midnight. It's dark as an armpit, and we don't happen to have a flashlight with us. Now, we've got two dogs that are just going nuts trying to sniff the entire forest in one shot, and we've got to get them into the cabin so we can get our gear. Not easy. We finally drag them into the cabin and they're just the two happiest dogs on the planet. Until we fill their water dish. The cabin was supplied with well water. Nala took one big lurp out of the bowl, sniffed it again, and looked at us like we were crazy. Randy walked over, sniffed it, and wouldn't even try to drink it. Great. Dogs that will drink out of a mud puddle and lick their own asses wouldn't drink well water. Our spoiled city dogs wound up drinking bottled water all weekend.

The next day, it was chilly and rainy, so we decide that we'll go to the state parks on Sunday, and just get some shopping done, come back to the cabin and watch the Ohio State game. Well, by the rules, you can't leave the dogs unattended in the cabin, but we had permission from the owner to do that, but they would have to be crated. Hence, two very confused dogs. Even though they are crate trained, they haven't been locked up in them for quite some time. We got some strange looks from the puppers as we were closing the gates on their crates, but they survived until we got back. After that, we (the humans, that is) jumped into the hot tub to watch the football game. That is the best way to watch a game...ever.

On Sunday, the weather was much better, so we harnessed up the dogs and headed to Hocking Hills State Park. Holy shit you'd have thought our dogs had won the lottery! The first stop on our trip that day went quite well. They behaved themselves, and we had a nice time on the trails in the park. The second stop didn't go quite as smoothly. Randy gets a little excited when he sees other dogs, and there were quite a few of them in the Old Man's Cave section that we had gone to. At one point, in the cave, there was another visitor that had two Goldens, and Randy just lost his furry little mind. I reached down to get a hold of his harness, and the next thing I know, I've got dog in one hand, harness in the other. Not to mention I'm flat on my ass trying to control this dog. Randy now has a new nickname...Houdini.

Monday started out on a sad note. We were greeted first thing with the news that one of our favorite television personalities had been killed in a freak diving accident. The Crocodile Hunter, Steve Irwin. Such a shame. He's going to be greatly missed. He's done so much for animals and natural conservation around the world. RIP Steve.

After that, we gathered our things and hit the highway once again.

It was a nice trip, but it's always nice to be home.