The Carolinas....

Mom, Pops and I travelled to the Carolinas to watch some b-ball and visit family and friends. What a great trip it was! I had a blast, I got to see my cousin Jasmine... I haven't seen her since January, right before she moved South. Here we are hanging out under her new deck after a great game of chase.

She has an AWESOME yard to play in, there are woods to play in and explore. All sorts of good things for us to sniff and its fenced in for us! It's pretty much awesome, they even built trails so Mom and Pops and the rest of my family can wander through the woods with us! It was so so cool!

Made me kinda want to live in North Carolina... then it got HOT and I haven't shed my winter coat. That changed my mind real quick... Maryland isn't so bad after all.... spring shouldn't hurry like it does in the South and us shelties like it that way. Maybe I would have liked it better if I had been furminated. Gotta tell Mom to work on that!

We also went kayaking while we were there! The weather was super warm and Mom even got a little sunburn- should've worn sunblock! Here we are out in the lake...

The weather was so warm and the water was so cool that I couldn't resist taking a dip. Ahhh.... the water feels SO GOOD! We didn't limit our fun to North Carolina... We went to South Carolina too! Talk about travelling sheltie! There I had a reunion with my buddy Cujo!!! I haven't seen him in FOREVER! We made up for lost time with a great game of tug with his March Madness brother....He'll be visiting our place in May! YAY!!!

I also met something really WIERD this weekend, something I've never seen before. But I was braved and sniffed it.. that something was a ball python!!

What an awesome trip!

I promised to post more of my pictures from my adventure out to the western part of the great state I call home. Here they are! Picture heavy post coming folks.. so be prepared.

Here I am getting my feets wet at Swallow Falls State Park...

And playing with a new friend...
The next day we visited Rocky Gap State Park... here I am on the trail to the Evitts Mountain homesite... this guy was a hermit and he made sure not to be bothered. To reach his place it was a 3 mile hike!

After such a long hike on what turned out to be a humid day, I crashed...

After a short dog nap... I made the trip up to the canyon overlook. Here I could survey the world...The last day we went to the Paw Paw Tunnel. This is was a great adventure, we went through this dark tunnel and Mommy and Daddy needed their flashlights. Mom said it was kinda spooky, but in a fun kind of way.

Here we are at the top of the tunnel entrance...

And here we are coming out the other side!

I spent the last three days out on the trails in Western Maryland... I'll post more pics later, but I thought that you would enjoy this one of me climbing the stone stairs of the Paw Paw Tunnel... The name just screams super cool doggie place, and it is!!! Don't I look so cool?

Sorry that I haven't written in a while but MY DADDY CAME HOME!! YAY!! He came back from the desert outpost of Washington and the wilds of Oregon just to see me! And it made me so happy! No more pouting on my window perch... its time to play tug and bark and play ball! My Daddy is the bestest EVER!

Wanna know something else that is super way cool about Daddy coming home? I got to go to the airport! Yup! Mommy and I went to meet him at the airport and I got to go inside the terminal. It was my first ride on a moving walkway and an escalator. They are such interesting things... we were moving without moving our legs. I stared intently at the floor while we rode on it... those escalator stairs are way different than the ones in our condo. Though they would be nice after a hard playday at daycare- I wouldn't need to expend any more energy to get to the top! After the escalator fun we found Pops in baggage claim, we didn't stay long though cause my feets weren't allowed to touch the floor inside the terminal. Mom was told that if they did the police would escort us out... so I had to content myself by snoozing on the ground outside by the taxi stand (its noisy out there, how's a guy supposed to get some shut eye?) and leaving "nose smears" on the terminal windows people watching while Daddy got his bag...

Before I sign off here's the pic of the trip... Daddy and his BIG TRUCK. I think its missing something. And that particular something is a sheltie in the window!

My Daddy is leaving me...

I watched him take out his suitcase, pick out his clothes and start to pack his bag. I tried to be a stowaway but he caught me...I thought I had hidden myself well enough, but I guess not. Maybe I should have covered myself up with more clothes...

Then I was excited when I saw him pack two dog toys and maybe I get to go! But my hopes came crashing down when he told me those toys were for my Pup Pals Katy and Max out in Walla Walla. Pout, I don't get to go. But Katy and Max be ready for some AWESOME toys! I helped picked them out and they are super cool!

So I have resigned myself to my fate. While Daddy is out in Imnaha, OR doing this :

I will be stuck back here in Maryland doing this:

Another Whitehaven post! This place was too much fun! I wanted to detail more of what I got into this past weekend, cause I know you all are just PANTING with anticipation over what I am going to say. First of all, we took TWO, count them TWO, kayaking adventures. The first was a bit tougher than the second seeing as how my superior sheltie navigation skills coupled with Pop's insatiable need for photos led Mom and I to run aground in the marsh muck. We were weren't stuck stuck just a bit jammed up because when Mom tried to push away from the shore the muck tried to swallow her paddle. Yipes! But all was well in the end and we had a good time. Here's another kayaking pic, this time Mom and I are navigating what remains of Whitehaven's Cannery. It was washed away by a hurricane.

Seeing as how it is back to school time, Pops and I took an early morning walk to visit the Whitehaven School. It looks a lot different than my school! In fact I'm not even sure if they use it anymore. I didn't catch a single whiff of crayons and construction paper so I can almost say without a doubt that it isn't used for teaching preschoolers! My Mom-Mom teaches at a pre-school and I get to visit sometimes. There are always good smells there, and they have a bunny rabbit. They don't let me play with the bunny though. I have to sit nicely and show the little ones what a well behaved dog I am. Once I even got to go hang out in the classroom for Fourth Graders while Mom chatted with one of her old teachers. His classroom was fun and he had lots of TERPS stuff posted but I missed all the smells and crumbs that came with the preschool classroom.

In a nod to my Newfy friends I just had to pose with the Whitehaven Ferry safety ring. Mom, Pops and I rode the Ferry across the river the last morning we were in Whitehaven. It's a neat little ferry, it carries three cars at a time back and forth across the river. It's free to everyone, but just make sure you get there before it closes for the evening else you will make a long trip for nothing- except for the chance to catch a glimpse of Whitehaven. It's neat to watch it go back and forth, but I wouldn't want to be the driver. I think it would get boring after a while just going back and forth in a straight line.

I also learned ferry lingo this weekend. The phrase of the day was "run the line." The Whitehaven Ferry runs on a cable that lies below the water, the cable keeps it from drifting down river (kinda like how us shelties keep the sheep moving in the right direction!) Well there are some people out on the river who do not respect that the ferry has the "right of way" and they will zoom up and "run the line" to try to get by before the ferry crosses in front of them. The danger with this is that sometimes their boat propeller can catch on the cable. Somethings gotta give at that point and either the cable breaks and the ferry floats away (VERY bad news) or the prop on the boat breaks and those silly people got what they deserved and are dead in the water. Today's lesson- When boating in Whitehaven don't run the line!!!

Greetings from Whitehaven!!

That's where Mom, Pops and I spent the weekend! Here I am posing next to the sign at the entrance to town. We stayed at this really awesome bed and breakfast called the Whitehaven Hotel. They allow doggies to come and stay in their Lincoln bedroom. It was really super cool. The hotel is located right on the water. It's a small town with only 20 or so residents but there was still adventuresome stuff for my sheltie self to get into!

First off one of the employees has a sheltie, a GIRL sheltie. Her name is Penny and you know what. She is the all the awesomer because she is tri colored too! How cool is that?! The only thing that kept us from being twins was that Penny has a lot less white than me and she doesn't enjoy playing ball or fetch. Guess thats cause she's a girl. But that's okay, at least she didn't give me any girl cooties or anything. That would have been TRAGIC. Penny and I were supposed to have a date on Saturday evening, you know wandering the woodlands watching the sunset but Mom and Dad had to go and stuff themselves at this place called The Red Roost and I missed my date. Oh drat. I'll have to keep in touch and hopefully she'll talk to me next time we meet...

But the weekend wasn't all about meeting the ladies. It was also about BOATING! Whitehaven is located right on the river and the hotel has three kayaks that guests can take out anytime they want. Here I am captaining my own ship on the mighty river. And don't worry, I was a safe boater and wore my lifejacket. It was great fun on the river, we saw fish jumping and we saw a Great Blue Heron along the shoreline. One of the employees said they nest along the shore. We didn't see any nests, but thats okay because Mom says we shouldn't disturb wildlife. I agree. Mom and Pops saw this neat little picture that sums it all up- Take only pictures... leave only footprints. That's what we try to remember on all of our trips. You should too!