Today was a puppy dog's dream day of camping. Well true, it did not begin with pancakes or even french toast, but there were a couple bites of blueberry muffin. Then we got in the truck and headed off to Lake Wissota State Park. We drove in, parked the truck, and started walking.
There were lots of trails, and they were largely vacant so the dogs got to run around with no leashes and sniff things at will. At one point we lost Tucker who must have seen a chipmunk or something and took off into the woods after it. We had to call him and wait a minute while he crashed his way back to us.
We are camping very close to this lake, but it is one of those lakes that is pretty much visible only by boat. The shoreline is fairly steep and quite wooded. We did find some stairs down to the lake itself, but the edge of the lake was muddy and rocky and fairly covered with algae. (Of course the dogs walked in it.)
The trails went through woods and also wildflower prairie. There were loads of mushrooms, lots of wildflowers, little Charlie Brown baby pine trees, and some really green groundcover that looked like moss with little juniper fronds. Some really pretty pine trees we are unfamiliar with.
We started out more in the woods and shade, but on our way back we were more in the sun and prairie. The dogs were pretty tired, and they started running ahead about 15 yards, finding a tree they could stand or lay in the shade of with their tongues hanging out, and wait for us to catch up. When we came alongside they would run ahead to scout out another patch of shade. We think they'll be comatose the rest of the day.
Of course Scarlett, who had found something noxious at home yesterday to roll in and was already fairly smelly, came across a dead skunk in the path and immediately rolled in it. So she was banished to the floor of the truck on the way home, which she would normally fight tooth and nail, but she just curled up on my bag and went to sleep instead. (I just looked up--both dogs are asleep under the picnic table and Tom is sleeping in his lawn chair!)
It turned out that we happened to visit a place that Tom has been before. We used to work with a guy from Eau Claire who fishes constantly, and Tom went fishing with him once. Yesterday when we drove to the campground, Tom recognized the lake and thought it was the same one they fished. Then today at the state park we drove down to the boat ramp and he said that was where they had put the boat in. That was a trip where they caught 50 crappies, so you can bet your sweet bippie that we'll be coming back with fishing licenses and a boat of some sort. (Mmm, crappie dinner...)
