So Nice We Did It Twice

Hiking with the little brown Dog yesterday was so enjoyable we decided to do it again today. Our trail of choice was the Clarke Island Preserve in St. George. It is just across the causeway from the CraignAir Inn.

We arrived at exactly the wrong time because all the parking at the Inn was full. Russ was instructed to go to the overflow parking, only 8/10’s of a mile back and hopefully there would be a bike to ride back to the Inn. I waited with Shay at the Inn. Eventually Russ came running down the road. The couple right before him took the last two bikes to ride back to the Inn. They weren’t smart enough to leave one person at the Inn so that they would use only one bike to get back. Just more steps for Russ.

Clark Island is uninhabited, except for the Island caretaker. This means that once you cross the causeway and are on the Island, well behaved dogs who answer to voice commands can be off leash. Shay was in heaven. As the leader of our pack this meant she was always out front. If she got to far she would turn back and look at us with that, “What is taking you so long” face.

She is an excellent trail dog, especially given her cataracts. At one point in in the hike, when she was first let off leash she had the zoomies and ran all round Russ. She went almost five miles today. No one would guess she is 13.

After our three hours in St. George we headed back to Owl’s Head General store. It was surprisingly closed for a four day weekend for staff to recover from the summer. So we went into Rockland. To our surprise there were three Cruise ships in the Harbor. Two were the tiny American Cruise Line ships that we are used to seeing here. But one was. Holland American giant 5,000 passenger ship. A guy in the harbor told us it had gotten in this morning.

I don’t know what in the world it did here, because they would have to use tenders to get people off that boat and on to shore. They didn’t stay that long because when we got home the ship was cruising by our house. It was by far the biggest boat I have seen out front of us.

Just seeing that boat made me glad I was in this little house, perched on a rocky shore, not going anywhere, well maybe just hiking.