Getting away from it all

My sister recently passed away and after taking care of what was required on that front we packed up and escaped civilization.  Politics and/or family bullsh*t mean I will not comment further on my sister here other than to say she fought a long hard battle.

En route to our little piece of paradise we came across every driver's dream when they have a sleeping passenger:

Yes, that's a semi facing us head on.  Fortunately, Dan wasn't quite able to sneak up on it fast enough before I opened my eyes. 

We got to the property and it was a chilly day.  That did not last long though.  The balance of our trip was 30+ day time temperatures but it cooled down in the evenings, so much that a few mornings we had frost on the windshield.

Our neighbors stopped by one afternoon, and their dogs followed.  Everyone we've met are dog people.  So, meet Inky:

And Sunny:

Two pound Pom Sasha also came for a visit but did not want to hang out with the big dogs, so no photo of her. 

The kids (no pics of them either!) had ridden their bikes over so they got settled on the deck and I got them some water.  The dogs started milling about and I asked 'should I bring out cookies'.  At the time I asked my back was to the kids, whose eyes I understand lit up with delight.  It only took a second before the neighbor started laughing and pointed out that she thought I was talking to the dogs.  Much to the dismay of the kids, I WAS talking to the dogs.  And, I didn't even have any human cookies to offer the kids.  Though my dog biscuits are human grade food I didn't think it wise to offer them to the kids - not until they get to know us a bit better.

As I said it was H O T during the day.  We got footings(?) poured for when we extend the deck and then took the rest of the time to relax.  We headed to Crystal Lake which we are told is a great fishing lake.  There's a little forestry campsite on the edge of the lake, about ten minutes from us.  The place was nearly empty so we just parked in one of the campsites.  I enjoyed the view:

while Dan and Brooke enjoyed the water:

Dan swam and Brooke, well she's not a water dog AT ALL, so she waded:

After cooling off we all sat down to enjoy the quiet:

Until Brooke spied this:

Yeah, chipmunk/squirrel  (not sure which is which now) had helped himself to a freezer bag of bread from one of the campers.

He sat and ripped a small hole in the bag and had lunch.

I went a little closer and he/she was trying to roll up his stolen goods and take off.

We went to a party up the road one night and Dan took some serious ribbing from one of the locals about the 'no hunting' signs he posted on the property.  And there was some good teasing about which of the locals should be allowed to hunt on the property.  It was a great night with great people which resulted in Dan deciding to leave them with this:

Dan posted it on one of the trails on our property:

We checked with one of the locals, just to be sure of everyone's sense of humor.  She assured us that Dan had probably just opened the door to some serious pranking. 

Back to the rat race now but still thinking about the lake: