Hey efurrybuddy! I is baaaaaaack! And I has lots of advenshures to share with you. We had furry eggsiting times at mountains and lakes and rivers and waterfalls and historical places and a farm with goats and chickuns (but not fur nomming, fur egg laying) and I seened an alien mothership! So without further to do, I shall get started and do this in chronic logic order.
So on the way to Furginia, we wanted to stop in Merryland and do an 8 mile hike at Catoctin Mountain Park to break up the drive. We woz pressed fur time, howefur, coz they had forecasted rain after noon so it woz kinda dreary while we woz hiking and we woz hoping not to get stucked in the rain.
So furst off, Bunny had asked me if'n I had efur been to Gettysburg. Well, Bunny, I had to pass rite by Gettysburg on my way to Catoctin Mountain Park. I sniffed out the window fur you.
So this woz the mountain we woz going to:
You can see the clouds is looking angry. So I started hiking...
...and checking pee mail...
Then we commed to a seenik at Chimney Rock:
And then we climbed some rawks ofur at Wolf Rock where there be signs wot say DANGER but it woz not skeery.
Then at this seenik we seened the road we woz driving on when we taked the pikshure of the mountain we be standing on!
And then, it started SLEETING! Yup, there be ice falling on my furs. So we quick continued on...
The sleet did stop when we commed to the waterfalls. They did has a nice boardwalk made fur us to walkies on and the signs asked that you stay on the boardwalk but duss you think peeples lissen? NO!
This man had a girl on the rawks by the waterfalls and not only did it mess up my pikshures, it teached the girl to be noggty and not lissen to signs.
See them up there in the corner of my piksure messing it up? Here, I biggify it fur you:
So anyways, that be about the end of our hike and I unloaded my litter haul at the recycling bin back at the parking lot:
You won't be seeing my backpack on me fur the rest of my trip coz something sticky got in the pawket from the litter we picked up so I could not wear it until we could get back home to wash it or mom woz skeered I would get bugs on me or be bear bait or something.
So we wussn't in the car and back on the road 10 minits when it started POURING rain and it rained almost all the way to our cabin at... OK, here we go, the park we woz staying at:
And the winner do be Frankie Furter coz he did guess the rite park wot I be staying at in Furginia fur my Earth Day Contesty! Yay Frankie Furter! Send my your addressy at shepshawnee at cs dot com pawlese so I can get your prize to your mail lady to gib to you! Thank you efurrybuddy fur entering - you all had some furry good guesses!
So here be my cabin at the James River State Park:
The living room.
The kitchun fur nom preparashuns.
The bafroom but that shower be too little fur me to be getting a baf in it, hehehehe!
Me and mom's bedroom.
The second bedroom wot we not be needed so we closed the door.
My hidey spot away from home.
And a deck with rawking chairs fur chillin out.
So, that be day 1. Much more to come but fur now I need naps, lots of naps... Stay tooned!
Hey efurrybuddy! I is not rilly here. I has this set on the timer thingie fur Earth Day coz I do be in the Land of No Innerwebs rite now. In my absences, I wanted to do this contesty fur Earth Day in conjunkshun with my hiking trip so here do be the eggsiting prizes wot you can win!
If'n you click on the linkies below, it will show you more about the prizes:
Mom has these and she uses them all the time and lots of peeples ask her about them and where she gotted them from coz they think they be so kewl. And at Whole Foods mom gets back 10 cents fur efurry bag, even the produce bags! That means more noms fur me! Mom NEFUR uses any kind of plastic bags any more fur shopping. Plastic bags do be so icky fur the environments. Just look around - they be hanging from trees all ofur the place and that rilly messes up my seeniks. Those plastic bags will be there furefur and efur unless somebuddy goes and gets them coz they duss not decompose. And those bags can make the wildlifes ded.
Wot duss you has to do to win? You has to guess wot state park in Furginia I be staying at and put your ansser in a comment on this post. If'n nobuddy gesses the rite park, then the one wot gesses the park closest to where I be staying do be the winner. And coz we only has one prize, if'n we has multiple winners, the furst one to gess the rite park do be the offishull winner. So go to this linkie for Furginia State Parks where you will see the map below:
After you click on the linkie the list of parks with the full names, not just two letters, do be rite unnerneath the map and when you run your mousie ofer the names of the parks, they do lite up on the map - furry nifty. (You kittehs can has a blast with this - just woofin'.) That way you know wot park names belongs to the two letters on the map. So this be like "Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?" only it be "Where in Furginia is Shawnee the Shepherd?" Oh, and you has until April 30 to gess. Happy Earth Day and happy gessing!
FINE PAWPRINT: If'n there be anybuddy wot I has alreddy blabbed to where I be staying they is not eligibull fur pawticipashuns. I is not woofing that I has blabbed, but just in case...
So mom said coz we has a hiking road trip coming up we woz going to take it easy today so we duss not use ourselves up afore the trip. So wot do we do? We go peakbagging. For those of you wot duss not know wot peakbagging is, it be when you summit mountains and in Noo Joisey there do be the NJ1K Club coz our mountains only be ofur 1,000 feets. And no we did not bag one peak, no we bagged TWO peaks wot means we climbed TWO mountains! And we hiked 11 miles!
One of the peaks wot we bagged.
So furst off I has to tell you, we had big crazee storms last nite. Not tornaders and skeery stuffs like a lot of peeples had but gabillions of rain and thunders so lots of the trails woz flooded out. Hey, it werks fur me. Take note of my impawsonashun of my furrend Sage:
I tried to tell mom that baf she gibbed me last weekend woz a waste but did she lissen? No. Sumpin about my furs needs to be clean fur the cabin we be staying in coz the state parks in Furginia lets dogs stay in the cabins and mom say we need to put our bestest paw forward so they keep letting dogs stay there.
Oh mai, wot has we here? I do beleef a bear waked up from hims hibernashuns all hungry and wanting noms so he must has torned this rotted tree up go nom on the bugs in the tree.
We did not see any bears. Just a red fox but he runned away too fast fur us to snag his pikshure.
We wented on this trail called the Ice Cream trail. We did not find any ice cream but we did find a beer can so the litter bugs must has eaten all of the ice cream.
We put the beer can in my backpack so dear peeples of Furginia, if'n I smell like beer when I get there next week, this do be why.
Some more litter on the Ice Cream trail to add to my collekshun.
So here do be a benchmark at the udder peak we bagged:
You can see how high up we woz thru the trees wot is still nekkid:
Hey! Who duss this belong to?
It do say HONDA on it so it must be from a motorcycle and they do not be allowed on these trails. Grrrrrr. It maded my backback too lopsided so mom had to put it in her backpack to haul out.
We commed to a seenik where we could see the Delaware Water Gap (where the mountains dip down) and the Kittatinny Mountains. We has hiked efurrywhere on the horizon of this seenik:
There do be a bridge for mom to cross the waters ofur this creek but most of the trails woz creeks anyways.
Now you knows how I has showed you afore how to jump ofur a log? And fur those vertically challenged furrends, how to go unner? Well I has found a thurd opshun for those of you wot want to do neither. Here do be my demonstrashun:
Duh! You just build youself a ramp with rawks! But I did not bilded this - the mountain bikers did to ride their bikes ofur but it werks fur us, too.
Oh. My. Dog. Duss you know wot this is? Take a sniff...
It be a bag of DOG POO! Peeples, let me tells you, putting it in a bag then leaving it on the trail duss not count as picking up after your dog! You mite think somebuddy putted it there earlier in the day and woz meaning to pick it up on their way back but no. The bag woz wet from the rains last nite so it had been dumped there. Mom carried it out. Ewwww. That rilly is no fair coz I duss not poo on hikes but mom has to carry poo anyways coz of lazy peeples.
So at the end of the hike we commed to Jefferson Lake and there woz a swan!
I will biggify him fur you:
So Mr. Swan started swimming closer to us and we be thinking wot a furrendly swan wot wants to come ofur and say hello to us. But then we seened this:
We think that be Mrs. Swan with a nestie of yunguns and Mr. Swan woz coming closer to tell us STAY AWAY to pawtekt his fambly. So we sayed so sorry to introod, no worries about us, and we went on our merry way.
So I let Dixie and Sydney show you all the litters we picked up, eggsept fur the dog poo (we found a second bag too) and the Honda thing - this be the rest of it:
So while they be doing that, I be resting up in my hidey spot to save up energies fur my trip!
So today we hiked 8.5 miles at Storm King State Park in Noo York. It woz a short hike fur us but mom sayed it "kicked her butt" coz we had to climb up and down 3 different mountains. The furst mountain do be Butter Hill and it be named that coz it do supposed to look like buttah - you be the judge:
So anyways, this do be me going up Butter Hill:
We woz kinda bummed coz it do be furry foggy in the morning and we could not see the seeniks furry well but OMD, look at the pikshure mom snagged up high above the fogs!
OK, so then we headed on ofur to Storm King Mountain.
Uh oh, major prawblem. I did not want to go up these skeery steps so mom had to help me coz wanted to go unner the steps and I would has fallened down the steep cliff.
Ta da! I made it!
We did find some snow still hiding up there on Storm King Mountain:
The fog do be going away now so I got to see the Hudson River from Storm King Mountain:
So then we commed down off of Storm King Mountain and went through the clove, wot be the valley, and I got to kewl my paws off in the creeks.
Then we started up Crows Nest Mountain and from there I could see that Butter Hill wot I climbed earlier:
The Crows Nest Mountain do be bald coz in 1999 there do be a big forest fire wot burnted efurrything up and the trees has not growned back. There woz big eggploshuns in the fire coz there woz ammunishuns laying around wot peeples did not know woz there. It prolly had been there fur years from West Point Military Reservation wot is rite next door. But they say as long as you stay on the trails you be safe so we did and we did not get blowned up.
Then we could see the Hudson River from the Crows Nest Mountain and the fog be all gone by the time we gotted there.
Then all of a sudden, OMD, I spied a Pirates of the Caribbean pirate ship in the Hudson River. Fur real!
Here do be a memorial fur the man wot gifted the grounds where this park be coz he wanted it to be furefur pawtekted so they not build shopping malls and stuffs on it.
So then we had to go down in that clove thing again then part the way back up Butter Hill to our car. Yup, mom and I woz dog tired.
Then at this seenik we seened the road we woz driving on when we taked the pikshure of the mountain we be standing on!
