Swamp Dog.

I’ve had not one but two showers today. I showered this morning and took Nuke out to Blue Mountain, where we did some hiking and even found a geocache. The Blue Mountain area is still green and filled with wildflowers, even as we’re headed into summer.

It was pretty hot out there, so after awhile we took a break and sat down under a shady tree for lunch. No GORP for us!! I packed lamb chops, grapes, and prosciutto.

Don’t worry, I shared my lamb. 🙂 After we got back down to the trailhead, I promised we’d go to the river to cool off. The road was closed at the first place I picked, so we went to a different park. I should’ve been warned off by the signs and sandbags:

This area flooded a few weeks ago, and the water hasn’t completely receded yet. They weren’t kidding about the mosquitoes. After only a few minutes down the trail I felt like this:

Luckily I always keep a mini-dropper container of DEET and sunscreen in my day pack. And boy does DEET work well. I didn’t get stung a single time after I put it on, despite the disquieting feeling I got from seeing swarms of mosquitos just hovering around me drooling with sad little hungry mosquito eyes.

It was also quite muddy.

But one nice thing about Vibrams is that you can just walk right into the river and rinse them off.

Sometimes it seems like Nuke is secretly a labrador. He loves water So. Very. Much.

Of course, he also loves MUD.

…which meant a nice cool hosing off when we got home. 🙂