Logging Some Lake Time - Part 3

On the last blog, the girls spent some time romping in the water at Alamo Lake!

Another lake shot - you might want to click and
make this one larger - it's a panoramic.

After getting everyone back from the boat ramp, we set up the wire exercise pen for the girls, and they happily plopped down on the beds to chill out in the shade of Arlene's awning.  Chris and I listened to music and ate snacks while enjoying the breeze blowing through the campsite.

Damp doggos drying off in the sunshine

Time for Cheeze-Its!

As the sun moved across the sky, it became a bit sunny in our area, so Chris worked on rigging up the tarps Bryan and Jen brought to our canopies, and we moved our operation over a bit.

The engineer at work!

"Thanks, Dad!"

After so much stimulation and time in the sun, we were all pretty worn out, so we headed inside for a little bit; Chris listened to some lectures for class while I read, and after he headed out to do some fishing with Bryan on the lakeshore, I logged into my classes and handled some of those duties.  For their part, the girls sacked out hard:

Zoe had the best time shoving herself into these tiny spaces.

All rested up, I walked the girls down the boat ramp again to meet Chris; while Bryan ended up catching three small bass during their time casting, Chris mainly just tangled up his line.  The girls romped a bit more, and we saw the coolest wild tarantula; I, of course, did not have my phone, so we have no pictures, but he/she kind of looked like this:

Thank you, internets, for that.

We toweled off the girls and then joined Bryan and Jen to chill out for the evening and get ready for dinner (sweet potato/black bean tacos and ribeye/turkey burgers with broccoli - all delicious).  Once again, we all crashed around 9pm and slept well, waking on Saturday morning to more sounds from the local fauna.

A picture from Jen of said fauna - 

you may have to make this bigger to see them -

they blend in pretty well.

We did see (and hear) coyotes there, too,
but we don't have pictures of such.

Although we originally planned to stay one more night and leave on Sunday morning, we learned during this time that Zoe isn't the best camper. August is kind of a nervous Nelly, but eventually, she chills out and curls up near me, quietly sleeping.  Zoe, however, is always on overdrive; she's constantly scanning and obsessing about things that worry her, she goes nuts barking, then quiets down, and then starts again, and so on.  She's exhausted - each time we went into our camper and she felt "safe," she would just pass out (not just sleep, like pass out from exhaustion) - and she makes being around her exhausting.  Chris and I talked about it on Friday night as we lay in bed, and we made the decision to head out around lunch on Saturday.  We were having a good time visiting with Bryan and Jen, but Zoe was making the experience tiring for everyone.

We let Bryan and Jen know on Saturday morning while we all ate breakfast, and although they were understanding (as they've had their own share of exhausting dogs), we would miss hanging out with them for another day.  While they did a bit more fishing and hiking with their boys, we chained our maniacs to the nearby fire ring and started slowly packing things up.

We also took this opportunity to grab some more shots from our campsite; as you can see, the view was incredible (and the stars were insane at night).

Chris brought his SUP but didn't end up using it.

We found out it fits perfectly inside the camper for transport.

For next time, I guess.

See all of this open land?

See the tiny patch of fake grass in the right of the shot?

That's almost the only spot Zoe would potty

during our time at Alamo Lake.

So that was fun, too.

A massive thank you to Bryan and Jen for letting us

cut this off their boys' mat, 

so our nutso terrier had a place to pee.

He only brought like four pairs of sunglasses with him...

We finished our packing up around 10:30 and after giving Bryan, Jen, and their kiddos big hugs (and taking some selfies), we made a quick stop at the lake's dump station to empty the fun stuff from Arlene's tanks.  We again stopped in Wickenburg for gas and bathrooms on the way back, and we arrived home around 2 or so.

It was a pretty quiet ride southeast, and it was even quieter at home that evening, after everyone had their baths:

Sacked out monkeys!

Overall, we had a good time at the lake - we got to see some great friends, we got to romp the girls in the water, and the weather and scenery were outstanding.  As it turns out, Bryan and Jen headed back early, too; they were planning to stay through Monday, but high winds in the area got them heading home on Sunday evening instead.  While we need to work with Miss Zoe on her camping and interaction skills, she's still young, and we've had dogs before with concerns like this, so it's nothing totally new for us.  We might try her on camping again in a year or two, maybe this time in a more remote location, when it's just her and her family.  We'll see.  ;)

Later!

Amy

PS - I'm adding a coda here to the original story - a few days after we made it home, we noticed that Zoe had a pink spot on one of her molars on the lower right side of her mouth.  Turns out she'd somehow cracked that tooth, and the pink spot we were seeing was her exposed root.  Eeee!  No wonder she was a turd during this visit - she's normally high strung, but this was excessive, even for her.  She's since had the tooth removed, and although she'll miss being fed soft dog food, she's pretty much back to her normal personality - we're all much happier.