Beyond the Paintbrush Divide: November 2015

So we left off with our vacation out east. Well, before we went on that trip we experienced a very powerful electrical storm. I forgot to put it in the last post! So much energy in the sky and some very cool lightning and cloud formations, but no rain. Naturally, we stood outside and took pictures.

Ominous sky

Cumulonimbus!

It's electric

Now back to the chronological order of events from the last post. At the end of August, we made a trip to Madison to do some camping with our friends Nick and Michelle, and Cassie's friend Copper. Cassie and Copper love playing together, chewing each other's ears, and relaxing.

Best friends on the couch

Best friends on the dog bed

Best friends chewing ears

It was a bit of a rainy weekend, which made for a muddy campground, and muddy pups. But we did do some hiking and had a good time. The campsite is a "hike in" site that is about a half mile from the parking area, so it is somewhere in between car camping and backpacking depending on how much you want to lug to the site. We lugged a lot.

Wrapping up a weekend of camping

We brought lots of stuff

To wrap up august, we spent some time in the yard with our good camera practicing taking pictures with different settings. We made some progress and learned some things, so I will leave you with some of those pictures. Cassie was a good model.

It is crazy how it has been almost four months since the last blog post. We have been busy, and the blog has been overlooked. So here is a dump of everything I can remember from the last post to catch us up to today.

First up, in August we drove east for the wedding of two college friends from UD in Detroit. The drive started off with brutal Chicago traffic and a hot shot motorcycle trying to zip through all of the cars and right into our bumper. Of course the guy didn't stop. Fortunately, it was all cosmetic in the plastic bumper, but it was an eyesore. Stay tuned for the bumper home repair later.

Chicago traffic is terrible

We had the Cassie Pup with us since we were going to continue on to NY after the wedding, so we had to stay near the Detroit airport at the pet friendly La Quinta. We went for a nice hike at a nearby park before the wedding to tire out the pup so she would be quiet in the room while we were gone.

That is one happy pup

The ceremony was right downtown in a community garden. Very nice venue, but brutally hot in the peak midday sun. The reception was a few miles away at the Detroit Golf Club. Now, if you haven't been to Detroit, it really is deserted in some parts. To get to the beautiful golf club we had to drive through a few miles of completely deserted land; buildings that were boarded up, burnt down, or just empty. Very eerie. The reception was a lot of fun and we had a good time catching up with college friends.

All dressed up at the Detroit Golf Club!

After the wedding, we crossed the border and continued driving east through Canada. We had a quick stop at Niagara Falls and continued on to see Phil's new house in Rochester.

Niagara Falls

We spent the night at Phil's (didn't take any pictures!) and then drove through the finger lakes wine region on the way to the lake. Thanks to advice from Phil, we looked up the dog-friendly wineries to visit since it was hot and we didn't want to leave Cassie in the car.

Enjoying some drinks at a boat-up winery on Seneca Lake.

At the end of Seneca Lake, we stopped at Watkins Glen State Park to check out the gorges. It is an impressive park, but man was it crowded. Everyone in upstate NY was at this park. So if you plan on going, go early or late and in the spring or fall... not mid-afternoon in August.