#maggievacation - More Adventures!

My name is Maggie.  I am better than dog.  I am able to do great things.  You will know this from what I did today.

First, I took grandma and grandpa out and showed them how to wash their truck.  Here, you see me instructing grandma on how to wash the truck bed.  Here I was inspecting her work and gave her some pointers on how to improve her technique:

After vehicle washing, we went to lunch on the patio of John and Mary's Pizzeria.  Grandma and grandpa recommended this place, and they brought me my own kibble for lunch while they ate some sort of obnoxious grilled eggplant thingy.

On to better things.  We decided to drive over to Fort Hale Park, also known as Fort Nathan Hale.  Here, grandma and I are entering the park:

Fort Nathan Hale is a 20-acre city park located on the east shore of New Haven Harbor in New Haven, Connecticut. It includes the site of a 1659 fort and a Revolutionary War-era fort. The fort was named after Nathan Hale, Connecticut's official hero. Since 1921, the site has been owned by the state of Connecticut. It has been used as a park and maintained as a historical site by the City of New Haven.

Now, frankly, I don't care too much about all that history.  I really care more about chasing balls.  Luckily, there is a great bark park there, where we chased balls until I couldn't stand up any longer.  Here I am laying out the markings for our ball-throwing game:

Now, most dogs simply chase balls.  I, however, enjoy acrobatics.  My favorite trick is to do a somersault as I catch the ball, just like my hero, Chase Utley.

After tiring grandma and grandpa out with ball throwing, I took them over to the playground and showed them how I can climb the stairs:

Then we walked down by the beach.  Here, I'm showing grandma the best way to get your nose inside the shell of a dead horseshoe crab:

But perhaps the most fun is chasing the waves, which I'm very good at:

I know I have many human fans.  Many of them wait at petting stations just to pet me.  I can tell they want my attention because they either stand still or sit.  This man was sitting, and so I came over to let him adore me:

As we drove home from the park, grandpa spotted a view of New Haven across the harbor at the mouth of the Quinnipiac River, and he couldn't resist jumping out of the car to take the photo.  Grandma and I humored him by coming along down to the water's edge:

When we got home, grandma and grandpa said it was time for "Happy Hour."  I know what that means.  It means that it's time for them to make me happy by throwing the tennis ball for me an infinite number of times in the garden behind our house.  They told me they threw the ball at least 1,000 times while grandma drank a beer and grandpa had a glass of wine.  While they didn't move all that fast, I sure did.

Until I didn't.

Then they said it was time to go inside for dinner.  I humored them because, frankly, I didn't have the energy to do anything else.

I wonder what we'll do tomorrow?

#maggievacation - Visiting My Dogma Mater

Hi Everyone.  It's Maggie again. Grandma and Grandpa said I did such a good job on my first blog that I could do another one. So, I decided to take them to my dogma mater - Yale University. Now, I know what you bipeds are thinking, how could a canine be a graduate from Yale. Well, its true. I have the certificate to prove it.  Here is a photo of mommy and me just after I received my certificate from the Canine Cognition Center at Yale. How cool is that!

We started our day with Grandpa making coffee for Grandma. Then we took a walk around the neighborhood so I could take care of my business. I don't know what it is about this coffee stuff, but no sooner did we start our walk than Grandma and Grandpa had to stop at a cafe and get more coffee. After breakfast, it was time to head toward campus. Here is Grandma and me outside one of the many brick buildings on campus.

In case you were wondering, Yale is big. There are over 11,000 students from all fifty states and 108 countries. The 3,200-member faculty is a diverse group of men and women who are leaders in their respective fields just like my Mommy. The central campus covers 310 acres and has over 260 buildings. Here, Grandpa and I are standing outside the really old science building where Mommy works.

We walked all the way through campus to the New Haven Green. Now there are a couple of really cool things you need to know about the Green.  First, it was once a cemetery.  The bodies are still there.  During Hurricane Sandy a big old oak tree feel over and there was a human skeleton inside the roots, probably from colonial times.  Second, cool fact - the Green is privately owned. A self-electing group of individuals called the "Committee of the Proprietors of Common and Undivided Lands at New Haven," maintain ownership of the green. This five-member committee oversees the large, main portion of the green. The proprietors are drawn from the ranks of prominent city residents. Members are appointed for life, and when one dies the four remaining members convene to select a replacement. Talk about old school. Here, Grandma and I are trying to see dead people.

Being a tour guide is hard work. You get hungry and thirsty.  It took a while to find a restaurant where we could all have lunch together. Humans and their silly laws about no dogs inside. Like, what do you think we're going to do, pee or something? Silly humans.

Here, Grandma is looking over the menu on the patio at Kelly's Restaurant & Bar.

When lunch finally arrived, I was so excited. It smelled so good.  Grandpa got a small plate and loaded it up and then put it on the ground for me. <Happy Dance, Happy Dance> Boy was I disappointed when the only thing on my plate was the kibble that Mommy always gives me. I thought for sure Grandpa and Grandma would share.  However, I was right there when Grandpa dropped a piece of a polenta fry. It wasn't that good after all.  My kibble was better.  I guess Mom knows best.  After lunch, it was back through campus, only this time we changed the route up a little bit to see more buildings.  Here is the great sage of Sage Hall. (Get it?) College kids can be so silly sometime.

One of the last places we stopped at was the Yale Farm.  A lush and productive academic farm that produces dozens of varieties of vegetables, fruits, herbs, and flowers, and is home to free-range laying hens and honeybees. I didn't see any of the chickens, but if I did, I would have chased them.

Grandpa has to stop and take a picture of the pretty flowers.  Flowers are okay, but I would have preferred chickens.

On the walk home, I had to settle for a stick.  This is my favorite prize stick.  I first found it when we took our walk last Saturday morning, and every time we walk this way, I find it again and chew it some more.

I hope I didn't get Grandma and Grandpa too tired from all the walking this morning.  I still want to go to the dog park this afternoon. Bye for now.  I hope I get a chance to do another blog.  Make sure you tell Grandma and Grandpa if you think I did a good job and maybe they will let me blog again.

#maggievacation - East Rock Park

Hi! My name is Maggie.  I'm Katie's puppy and I live in New Haven.  My Mom is attending a conference this week, so Grandma and Grandpa are staying with me in my apartment.

I miss Mommy a lot yesterday, and moped around the house a bit, but by today I was ready for a big adventure.  I have lots of responsibilities this week.  I have to keep and eye on my grandparents and make sure they learn their way around the neighborhood.  I also need to take them on adventures so they don't get bored waiting for Mommy to come home.

Here is my street.  This is a cute little pocket park, just my size, at the end of my block:

I have lots of puppy friends and they all know my name.  So do their parents.  The first walks we took were confusing to the neighbors because they would start saying, "Hi, Maggie!" and then ask, "Where's your Mommy?"  I tell each of them the whole story and make sure they give me all the pets I deserve.  Here I am playing with my friend Zula:

Every walk involves lots of discoveries.  Here I found a stick prize to take home with me:

After breakfast today, I took Grandma and Grandpa to one of my favorite places:  East Rock Park!  Grandpa took my photo with Grandma at the park sign as we began our park hike.

...and here's where we're going - East Rock!

The hill itself and College Woods form the heart of East Rock Park, a landscaped city park including basketball courts and a playground.  It was designated as public parkland by the city of New Haven, and contains many hiking trails, woodlands, and a notable "Giant Steps" edifice which has been built to facilitate climbing the hill's steep cliffside.

Here, Grandma and I are starting the trail.  Look at how we're wagging and prancing!

Of course, no hike is complete without some side trips.  Here we are visiting Whitney Lake and thinking about diving in.  I would have, if Grandma hadn't kept a tight leash:

After walking a ways, we started uphill.  Here, Grandpa is taking over as my leash buddy at the trail sign:

After herding Grandma and Grandpa up a long climb, we finally made the summit!  Here, Grandpa and I are posing in front of the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial at the top of East Rock:

The monument is topped by the Angel of Peace, which overlooks the City of New Haven, hand raised with an olive branch and holding a wreath as an enduring symbol of hope, peace and harmony.  The monument honors the residents of New Haven who gave their lives in the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Mexican-American War and the Civil War.

Grandpa had to teach me all about the glacial history of East Rock.  Luckily, there was a sign explaining the whole thing, so Grandpa didn't have to make it up:

East Rock was formed about 200 million years ago as the continents were in the process of moving away from each other. Molten rock from deep in the earth surged through stress cracks formed in the sandstone bedrock of the New Haven area. The molten rock cooled to form dolerite, also know as basalt or traprock. Dolerite is much more resistant to erosion than the surrounding sandstone. As glacial action and the forces of weathering eroded away the softer sandstone, East Rock (and other traprock ridges such as West Rock) became more prominent. The summit of East Rock Park now rises more than 350 feet above the floor of the Mill River valley at its base.

East Rock is the highest point of the formation created by ancient glaciers 20,000 years ago.  At 366 feet, it offers spectacular views of the City of New Haven, Mill River, Quinnipiac River, Long Island Sound and Long Island.  I took over and pointed out to Grandpa and Grandma all the key sights to see in my hometown.  I even showed them my favorite beach on Long Island Sound:

Hiking is thirsty work.  Hikers like me need to stay hydrated.  As Dave Childs told Grandma and Grandpa, it's better to carry the water inside you than in the water bottles:

We rested for a bit at the top.  Grandma and Grandpa ate their turkey sandwiches.  I was advised to tell Mom that I "didn't get any" scraps of turkey.  Well, mostly.

It was all downhill from here!  Somehow, my pace picked up as I romped down the trail and knew we were heading home.  Here's an action shot Grandma took of me leaping log in one bound:

I'm an esthetic puppy, too, you know.  Here are some beautiful purple flowers I pointed out to Grandma and Grandpa as we passed over the pedestrian bridge:

How cool is this old tree?  It just bends right over the path.  I told Grandpa it was a good photo-op!

Once we returned to College Woods, we took a slightly different route home, down East Rock Road, a street lined with stately old homes.  I didn't much care for the neighborhood because I couldn't pick up the scent of any dogs on the lawns.  I guess the lawns are too clean for that (hee-hee-hee).

By the time we reached home, I was really tuckered out.  As soon as the leash came off, I made a bee-line to my bed and put my head down and started snoring.  I dreamed some wonderful dreams of trees and rocks and chipmunks - a wonderful adventure!

The Nicholas Sagas - Wandering the Adirondacks

The day finally arrived.  Our nephew Nick rode up on the train from Philly to Albany.  We picked him up and brought him back to our campground for a little RV life and a 3-day backpack.  By the time we got back to our rig, it was dinner time, so we walked over to have a little meal at the restaurant across the road.  Here, Kathy and Nick are sharing the relaxed repast at the Chandelier Restaurant here halfway between Newport and Middleville on NY Route 28:

After dinner, we settled in to watch "Harry Potter: The Deathly Hallows, Part 2" and shut our eyes around 11pm.  We were up bright and early and Nick offered to make pancakes in memory of all those great pancake breakfasts he made for us on our "Rug Rat Camping" trips with Uncle Tom and Aunt Eileen and a various additional cast of characters, such as Vicki, Mike, Jen, Drew, T.O., Katie, Matt, cousin Sam, cousin Kim, and assorted friends of Nick, Mike and Vicki over the years:

They were blueberry pancakes and they were DELICIOUS!

This fueled an hour's drive into Adirondack Park to start our hike at the Scusa Access Trail, which connects with the Brown's Tract Trail in the Ha-De-Ron-Dah Wilderness section of the Adirondacks.  Here Nick and Kathy pose at the start of the trek:

Ha-De-Ron-Dah, like the legendary Phoenix, was reborn and rose again. In the early 1900's, this was the site of one of the most destructive forest fires in New York State. Today, this small wilderness is a refreshing place of trees, lands and water, with several gorgeous lakes and ponds for hikers' enjoyment.

There are two lean-tos in this wilderness; one is located on Middle Settlement Lake and the other at Middle Branch Lake.  Our backpack trip spanned two nights, and we spent one night camping at each of those shelters.  The fact that the yellow Brown's Tract Trail is a loop trail, and you can reach both lean-tos hiking in either direction, might have been the reason these two hikers seem confused about the proper direction to proceed.  As usual, Nick was right:

The first day's hike was filled with small ups and downs, across ridges and through bogs populated with the thickest populations of ferns we've ever seen.  Perhaps this season's rainy weather (more on that later) had something to do with making this seem every bit as much a rain forest as the Olympic Peninsula in the State of Washington.

As we neared Middle Settlement Lake, we hiked through an amazing array of huge glacial erratic boulders, any one of which was bigger than Great White.  Here, Kathy and Nick pose among their rocky friends:

Our first glimpse of Middle Settlement Lake was bucolic and almost heavenly.  David couldn't stop snapping photos, and kept racing ahead of the others to see the next photo opportunity:

We reached the Middle Settlement Lake lean-to and proceeded to set up camp:

It was a beautiful spot, situated at the center of one of the shores of the lake, right on the water, with huge flat-top stone bedrock slanting down to the water.  Soon after we arrived, we were greeted by the male part of the local loon couple that resides at the lake.  He seemed curious, and paddled close to where we were standing:

As we watched him, he demonstrated his fishing prowess.  While he was doing this, he showed us a behavior we had never seen before:  he dove and swam at VERY HIGH SPEED just under the surface of the lake, leaving a wake and reminding us of a torpedo, or perhaps the shark in "Jaws."  In this manner, he was able to get almost all the way across the lake in one breath.  Really interesting:

As soon as we got our tents pitched near the lean-to, Nick gathered some wood, assisted by Kathy and David, and started the fire.  On this trip, Nick earned, in addition to his Backpack Badge, his Cherokee "nick"name for this hike:  "He Who Breathes Fire," because of his skill at resurrecting a campfire from the wet ashes left by a passing shower.  Here he shows his fire talents:

About 4:15, soon after we got our tents erected, the Adirondacks shared with us their talent for blessing campers and hikers with afternoon showers and thunderstorms.  We heard thunder in the distance, but all we received locally were drenching showers, most lasting not more than a half hour or so.  Here's a photo of one of the fiercer deluges.  The lake looked like a bubbling cauldron of slate grey lava:

As the heaviest shower passed, clouds parted behind us to reveal the descending sun, which blessed us with - not just a COMPLETE rainbow, but a DOUBLE rainbow!  David took this photo, which captured the nearest of the two rainbows but couldn't pick up the fainter, second one.  The rainbow seemed to complete our thought that this lake was like paradise:

As the sun peeped back out between showers, we started to prepare dinner.  David offered to take a selfie of us, sitting in our watertight shelter:

After dinner, we watched the fire and enjoyed alternating rainshowers and sunset colors.  We turned in fairly early and didn't have much trouble falling asleep after the day's adventures.

Morning on Day Two dawned clear, calm and beautiful.  The rising sun poured into our campsite from across the lake, and we got some beautiful colors and mists:

The water was still, we could see the entire lakeshore mirrored, with puffs and streams of mist appearing and disappearing in the air above the trees, and low on the lake surface:

Here is a photo of our campsite from behind, with one of those erratic rocky presences keeping guard over us:

As we began our trek on the second day, we found the ground damper and the boggy areas wetter than the previous day, but the sunny morning weather kept our spirits undampened.  Nick and Kathy even did little dances as they hopped rocks on the numerous stream crossings:

We made our way around the loop and into camp at the second shelter, on Middle Branch Lake, just after noon, leaving us plenty of time to loll about and explore:

This early arrival was good, because the afternoon showers started earlier on this second day.  By 2:30 we were getting pounded with rain.  Kathy and David originally decided to have Nick put his tent up inside the lean-to (allowing the tent screening to protect against stray mosquitos and black flies), but found a spot up the hill to pitch our tent.  Midway through the first flood of rain, we realized we had calculated wrong, because there was so much rain, even within an hour or so, that the flat spot we found for our tent was bound to get flooded.  We were concerned that our sleeping bags, which we put out in the tent to permit them to reloft, might be getting wet without any moisture protection other than the tent floor and ground cloth. As soon as a break came, David raced up and rescued the sleeping bags - still dry thankfully.  Later, in another break in the rain, we brought the tent itself down, to set in the lean-to alongside Nicks after dinner.

Meanwhile, there were sunny moments, and in the earliest one, Kathy and Nick found the chance to take their boots off and dip their tootsies in the cool water.  Kathy thought about taking a swim - tried to tempt David and Nick into it although each declined - and did finally dip her head in to cool off.

Kathy didn't mention it as we approached the junction for the spur trail to the Middle Branch Lake lean-to, but she spotted a black bear paw print and some bear scat along the trail.  She didn't want to unduly alarm Nick.  However, Nick himself had seen the paw print, so there was no secret.  We hung our food and equipment from a tree branch as our usual bear-bag precaution, and neither we nor the food was disturbed by ursine interlopers during the night.

We woke up on Day Three to a heavy, overcast sky, humid and possibly threatening more rain at any minute.  As we packed up our camping gear, some of the half dozen loons that populate Middle Branch Lake serenaded us with their crazy songs.  They seemed to be saying that, while the rainstorms may have dampened spirits a little, nothing could dampen the spirit of the loons - or the awe their calls provoke in our hearts.

We regularly spotted sprinkles on the lake and were sure that our hike out (which was the longest of the three days) would be wet of foot and body.  However, we were very lucky:  we experienced no rain, and only got our feet wet because many stretches of trail were little ponds or streams from the two or three days of constant rainshowers.  But our spirits were high and the weather just warm enough, so we whistled and sang and chatted and marched along the whole way out.

We met two groups of day-hikers as we circled around toward the trailhead.  With some cheery chat and farewells, we continued on, reaching the truck by a little after noon.

What does any good backpacker do almost immediately after completing a backpack?  FEAST!  And so we did at the first diner that came our way on the drive back to our RV.  Here, Nick and Kathy are tucking into a good, big, juicy burger and a fresh and substantial taco salad, respectively:

After getting home, we feasted on leftovers from our pre-hike dinner, then settled down to watch the earliest of the Harry Potter movies.  Afterward, it was bed-time a little earlier tonight - both because Nick had an early train to catch and because, frankly, we were narcoleptic after our hike and belly-filling meal.  We all slept soundly (NOT on the ground or on a wooden lean-to floor), and were up before 7:00 am for our morning coffee and to prepare with Nick for his train ride home.

Nick, we had a great time introducing you to the joys (and the darker sides) of backpacking.  Only you will be able to decide whether all the pleasures and rewards outweight the grunt-work of the hikes and the chores related to camping.  But we all agreed that we had some pretty amazing adventures on this trip and we'll remember them forever!

Eddie & George Wake Up With Nick in the Adirondacks!