There's no place like home

Maybe it's a sign of impending old age. But we're really becoming creatures of habit. Disruptions in our routine are discomfiting in a way they haven't been before.  We like our small town life in the middle of a big rural county. We're settling into a rhythm much more in tune with the earth. It took us a lot of years to take this step back from the manmade stresses superimposed on the natural world, and it's too bad we were too busy running marathons in our hamster wheels to figure this out earlier.

But with our entire roof being torn off and rebuilt to accommodate a (small) second story, it seemed like a good idea to take a trip for a few days. So we boarded the cat, packed up the dog, and took a road trip to visit my sister. Who happens to live in the nation's capital, one of the most densely packed (in terms of people, vehicles, buildings, and white collar criminals) areas on the planet. It used to be fun to visit--the museums, the monuments, the restaurants, the cosmopolitan vibe--but after a while, the novelty has disappeared and the overall unhealthiness of the environment has become suffocating. DC is about as unnatural as it gets this side of Disney World, despite the small green oasis my sister has created in her back yard. It confounds me that people who have a choice would voluntarily reside in a city where anything not bolted down or barricaded behind triple locks is fair game for thiefs.  The roadways are so choked with vehicles (many with only one person in them) that a lane closure due to construction turned the last three miles of our departure from the beltway into a 90-minute crawl. How do you evacuate a place like that in the event of disaster? The answer is, YOU DON'T.

So after our short and sweet visit with people we still love anyway, we thought we'd head for the mountains and camp out. Well, camping in October is way more popular than we ever knew. Especially on a gorgeous holiday weekend, which we somehow overlooked in our plans. It's October, how hard can it be to find a place to pitch a tent?   The campgrounds in Shenandoah National Park were full.  Plan B was a motel room outside the park. We found a Red Roof Inn, a chain that is dog friendly.  Not the camping experience we had hoped for, but it worked. We still got to enjoy the beauty of the mountains and the Shenandoah Valley.  And free wi-fi!

We finally got to pitch our tent in Allegany State Park, almost in our back yard. It's an amazingly beautiful 65,000 acres open year round for all kinds of outdoor recreation-- boating and fishing, camping and hiking, snowshoeing and cross-country skiing.  Proving it doesn't require a LONG road trip to get away. And the wildlife like it too. You can find deer crossing signs everywhere, and even this sign on I-86 between here and there.

The campgrounds are pretty well populated with people and dogs, not the kind of place a shy black bear is likely to wander into, but we know enough about raccoons  to know that you don't leave food lying around your campsite.  Heck, you can't trust the omnipresent birds and chipmunks. We keep our site clean. Even the dog food gets locked up.

We had a nice hike around Red House Lake.  Conor met lots of other dogs.  We prepared dinner, ate, cleaned up, and got settled around our cozy little campfire. It gets dark early in October, but we had a beautiful, clear, moonlit sky, and a fellow camper with a guitar kept us entertained until lights out.

We retired to our tent and drifted off to the soothing night sounds of the forest. Only to be jolted awake by a sudden sharp WOOF! in the dark, which was immediately followed by a direct strike on our tent. Alas! Nailed by the diminutive striped terrorist of the woodland.   Conor, responding as good dogs will to movement outside the tent,  had unwittingly given away our position to the enemy. The front corner of the tent took the brunt of the chemical attack, but within seconds, the odor molecules permeated everything inside with a gagging stench.  Who knew that military surplus gas masks should be required gear for camping in state parks?

We're back home. The new roof has been built, but we'll be dealing with the continued commotion of construction for a while yet. Our days are noisy, temporarily, and there are all these guys with power tools all over the place, temporarily.  But the dog and cat are getting used to them, and I can sit on my own couch, sleep in my own bed, and cook in my own kitchen.  It's quiet and safe here at night. Oh, Auntie Em...