Climb Every Mountain

August 11, 2007. Finally today we got some pictures of deer. Unfortunately, it was not while we were on a walk and it was not with the Nikon. When we were coming back from town from a grocery run, we came across two deer standing in the middle of the road near the 5K sign.

They seemed completely unconcerned about Tom’s truck and let us move up fairly close. Tom started taking pictures through the windshield with his little HP camera, but this time we were close enough to just need the optical zoom. The flash from the camera finally scared the two deer away. These photos have much better quality than the last ones. Check them out for yourself.

I got a bit ahead of myself with the deer story though. Tom, Glenda and I did our morning walk today, but Tom could only handle 4K today as he is not feeling great. The biggest anomaly of the walk though, was the fact that we did not run into anyone or anything on the entire walk. That is the first walk we have done the whole trip without interruption.

Not one car, truck, ATV, motorcycle or bicycle. Not a dog, deer, squirrel or person crossed our path. How strange. It was kind of nice though when you think about it. I did my best to see if I could scare something up out of the bush though, including scaling halfway up the mountainside on a near cliff. It’s easy when you know how.

Before we went to town we took grocery orders from Glenda and Teri and Tom dropped his diving gear off in Perry’s truck. He is going home either today or tomorrow and since Tom doesn’t need his gear anymore, Perry offered to take it back for him. That will save Tom room for the return trip.

Boy, that is coming up quickly too. Renee arrives on Wednesday, then Karl the Saturday after that. When they all go home, Tom and I are going as well. No sense being here alone for the rest of the summer. It’s actually only cutting our trip short by one week though, so that’s not too bad.

After we got back from town, the wind shifted and it looked like we were going to get another north storm. Because of the pounding that the boat can take if it’s left on the dock, Tom decided to risk the new anchor point today. So instead of stripping the covers off, starting the motor and then having to recover the boat and swim back in, Tom swam the boat out and secured it to the float. It has had a few big waves from passing boats hit it and so far the new anchor seems to be holding. We’ll keep a close eye on it though, especially if the storm does come in.

I really wanted to join Tom on the swim or in the boat, but, it did look a little on the cold side, so I decided to wait on the dock. Tom said the water was fine, although he did look like he was shivering a bit when he came out.

Later on in the evening, we had a 4K walk with Glenda. Tom is starting to feel a little stronger, but still is not back to the 8K walk level yet. Then again, we never do more than 4K in the evening anyway. It was a good walk, but when we got to the 10K sign to turn around, I didn’t want to. I barked at Tom, I jumped on him and I grabbed his wrist, but I could not convince him to go farther. Oh, well, maybe next time.

After we got back, Tom took me down to the beach and started piling up firewood. I know what this means, it’s campfire time again. Tom forgot something at the cabin, so we went back up and when we returned, Glenda was in place. Tom lit the campfire and awhile later we were joined by Perry, Teri, Andi and Sandy.

I took turns lying down by each person’s feet. The game became that whoever I chose to lie beside, became my spark protector. Everytime the fire spit out a spark, that person had to stop the spark from hitting me. It was fun, and everyone did a very good job as I did not get hit once.

Too soon it was time for everyone to go home and for Tom and I to head off to bed. The sky was very threatening during the fire, but we didn’t get rained on at all. Hopefully the weather will improve before Renee comes and before Karl and Mat.