North Georgia Mountains, Peanuts, Dog Parks, and a Bath

When we got to the campground in Dillard, Georgia, it was cold, windy, and snowing!

I could not believe my eyes.  What was going on?  It was April and we were in Georgia.   It shouldn’t be snowing in April in Georgia!

Once we got settled in and got the house on wheels leveled, which didn’t take anywhere near as long as it did in Tennessee, me and mommy and daddy went for a walk.  We walked all around the campground even though it was cold.  We went down to the dog park, which was really neat.

There were mountains all around us, everywhere you looked, there was a huge mountain.  There was even a really big waterfall that we could see from the campground too.

I did have a talk with Mother Nature at the end of the day and told her that she needed some Zen time or something because this was getting crazy.  The next day was a lot warmer, so she must’ve listened to me.

Every day that we were in Dillard, we went for at least two or three walks a day.  Each one was only like a mile or a mile and a half, but it was awesome to walk with mommy and daddy so much.  We’d also go to the dog park each day and play.  Mommy even brought my tennis ball the one day.  Me and mommy used to always play with the tennis ball back when we lived in our big house.  It was so much fun!

I like playing with the tennis ball, but when I decide that I’m done playing, I just stop.  That’s it, no warning, no telling mommy or daddy ahead of time.  They throw the ball and I just stay put, that’s it, game over.  Then they have to go chase the ball that last time.  I think it’s a fun way to end the game, but I don’t think that they do.

We were in Dillard until Wednesday and then we were headed a couple hours west to East Ellijay, which is still in North Georgia.  This RV Park was brand new!  It was called Talona Ridge RV Resort and it was out of this world!  It was a little bit like the one in Dillard with the mountains all around it, but this one was even on its own mountain too!  It was also a lot bigger than the one in Dillard.  Not that the one in Dillard wasn’t nice, but this one was super nice!

When we pulled in, I was in awe!  Daddy was really happy too, because after we pulled the house on wheels into our spot, he just hit the auto-level button and boom!  We were level in no time at all!  Daddy didn’t have to put blocks under the tires and tell mommy to pull forward or back up at all.  We just pulled in, leveled, and put the slides out.  We were ready to go for our first walk within a few minutes.  I’m happy when we have nice level sites because nice level sites make mommy and daddy happy.  If mommy and daddy are happy campers, I’m a happy pup.  In all honesty, daddy gets grumpier than mommy does if our site isn’t level, but don’t tell him that I told you that.

We walked all the way down to the lower level of the resort.  The resort has three levels and we were on the top level where you could see everything all around us.  It was so neat!

Once we got down to the lower level, there was a dog park there too!  Actually, two dog parks!  One for big boys like me and one for those little dogs like Domino. The big boy dog park was really big.  It was a lot bigger than the one they had in Dillard.  They had these big black tubes in the dog park and daddy wanted me to walk through it, but I didn’t want any parts of it at first.  Finally, daddy looked at me, pulled a treat out of his pocket and asked me if I wanted it.  Of course, I wanted it, that was a dumb question.  He then held it right in front of my nose and tossed it into that big long black tube!  I was like, “What the bark, Daddy!?  Why did you do that!?”  I wasn’t happy.  I looked at daddy a little bit, then I tiptoed into that tube to get my treat.  I still couldn’t believe that my daddy would do that to me.  After I got the treat, I backed out of that tube never to return again!

Then daddy said, “No silly, you walk to the other end of it, not back out of it.”

I could tell that this was going to be a debate.

“Hey man, I just turned 13.  Didn’t you ever hear the phrase, ‘You can’t teach an old dog new tricks?’  That applies here daddy.”  I said.

Then he took another treat out, showed it to me, and tossed it further into that stupid tube!

I’ve never bitten my daddy or any human for that matter, but the thought certainly crossed my mind on this occasion.  I looked at him again and was like, “Seriously, man!?”

Well, I went in again, got the treat, and then walked all the way through to the other side.

Daddy ran around to the other side and took a picture of me as I was coming out, and said, “Good Boy!”

I was like, “I don’t want to hear it man, just leave me alone right now while I process all of this.”

We played some more until two little dogs came in to play in the tiny part of the dog park and I started to go crazy.  Mommy and daddy said, “Ok, time to go.”

We walked all over the resort every day that we were there.  One day we even explored outside of the resort.

On Friday, it was really warm and sunny out when we went on our walk.  Mommy was carrying towels and some other things.  I wasn’t sure why; she’s never done that before.

First, we went to the dog park and played.  By this time, I’d just walk through that goofy big black tube on my own.  It wasn’t so bad after all.  Sometimes daddy would still toss a treat in there for me and sometimes I’d just walk through because I wanted to.

Daddy would say to me, “See pal, sometimes you just need to get out of your comfort zone.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, daddy…”  I would reply.

After the dog park, we walked over to this building and the three of us walked in.

At first, I thought, “Oh cool, a building that I can go into!”  Then I saw what was inside and immediately knew why mommy brought those towels with her.

“Seriously guys?  A bath, you want to give me a bath?  I don’t think so.”

Daddy took a treat out of his pocket and held it up at the top of the ramp.  I said, “Nope, not falling for it this time.”

I kept looking at the treat, looking at him, looking at the treat, looking at him…

Finally, I decided, ok, I’ll go up there.

Once they got me in that big tub, it wasn’t actually that bad.  The water was warm and soothing and mommy and daddy took turns rubbing the soap on me and rinsing me off.

They kept telling me that I was being a really good boy, but I kind of already knew that.

After the bath, I got more treats and we walked all the way back up to our site.  Like I said before, it was a nice sunny day, so me and mommy and daddy all sat outside and enjoyed the sunshine.  It also helped me dry off a bit too.

On Saturday, one of daddy’s former players, Zac drove all the way up from Atlanta to see us.  I like Zac.  We stayed in his driveway once and he let me walk around in his backyard.  He’s a really fun guy.  Mommy and daddy and Zac went to eat and when they came back, we all sat outside.  Mommy and daddy brought back a peanut butter treat for me and they had these things called boiled peanuts.  I never heard of a boiled peanut.  Daddy put my treat in the middle of the picnic table and was getting himself situated and I just stepped up on the bench and took that treat off of the table all by myself.

Daddy wasn’t happy, but I was hungry man.  Sometimes you just have to ask forgiveness instead of permission.  Daddy also wasn’t really happy with me when he dropped one of those boiled peanut things and I ate it up before he even knew what happened – shell and all.  Again, forgiveness, not permission.  It was really good, soft and salty.  But that was the only one that I got.

We had such a great time at Talona Ridge.  We spent Easter there.  Mommy and daddy got to listen to live music two nights, and we walked and played every single day that we were there.

A bunch of the workers there petted me too, that made it really awesome.

We left on the Monday after Easter and I was sad.

Before we left town on Monday, daddy dropped mommy off at Wal-Mart and then we went to the UPS Store and the Post Office while mommy was shopping in Wal-Mart.  When we got back to Wal-Mart and parked the house on wheels to wait for mommy, a lady walked up to daddy at the house on wheels and told him that she followed his blog.  Her name was Julee.

I thought, “She probably follows mine, but she’s just trying to make daddy feel good, so let’s just go with it.”  They talked for a while.  It seemed to make daddy happy, so I wasn’t going to burst his bubble either.

After mommy came out of Wal-Mart, we stopped at CVS and then Chick-fil-A for lunch before we were heading off to Kentucky.

I got some waffle fries at lunch, so it was another great day!