Back from Vacation

Mom, dad and I went on vacation for nine whole days to one of my favorite places. It is a special cabin at one of our parks that the public doesn't rent because there is no real road and mom says the cabin is too rustic for the public. So staff can rent it. It is right on the river. It is called the Brown Cabin (it's not named after someone named brown, it's just painted brown) and it's at Shenandoah River State Park. I know my pal @ShawneeShep and her mom know about the cabin because they found it when they were hiking in the park.

It is a really good vacation for mom because there is no cell service and no internet. Also no TV (they actually have a TV that we can rent Red Box videos and play them but only three channels). So mom read 9 books while we were there (actually they were on her Kindle). One was that new Chet book (I will blog about that another day).

We did get a lot of rain thanks to that Hurricane Lee coming up from the gulf. The Chief Ranger came and warned us about possible flash flood warnings but the Shenandoah River just got a little bit wider. The porch room that mom likes to spend her time in (she can see the river and the windows open really wide (we will not talk about the screens on the window that were perfect when we got there but somehow not so perfect when we left - can I help it that I have to jump up and bark when people go by hiking or biking?) has a tin roof so the rain was very relaxing. When you want to spend your vacation reading and relaxing the rain is not a bad thing.

It did not rain steady so there was lots of time for me to go swimming in the Shenandoah River. Since there is a current in the river (and none in my pond), it is different swimming. The river tended to steal some of my sticks too and there also seemed to be a stick shortage at the park compared to our yard.

Oh the big news was that we also took Alexis and she got herself a mouse! Mom said - another reason we don't rent that to the public (no pix). She had lots of fun stalking all kinds of bugs too.

If you like a good place for a vacation, I highly recommend Shenandoah River State Park. The park has "for the public" cabins that are only a year old and two great campgrounds.

Guess WHO mom saw and the Saturday blog hop

Mom was at a conference this week (actually she went to two). The second one was at one of my favorite of her state parks, Shenandoah River. The park staff and volunteers were doing research on a special kind of owl called the saw-whet. Shawnee gave her the idea to hunt for one of those high tech thingees to show you all what those owls sound like.

	Bruce Marcot - Northern Saw-whet Owl call .mp3
	Found at bee mp3 search engine

Mom said she could hear them doing the fake call to lure the owls so they could put bands on them. The bands are supposed to help scientists learn more about what the owls do and where they go.

The night mom was at that park they did not catch one of those saw-whets but a long-eared owl instead. Mom took this video so you can see what this owl looked like.

Mom said if you want to know more about the owl banding project going on you should read about it by clicking here. Pretty interesting and lots of people are helping with the project. Mom was real excited she got to be so close to that owl.

And now join in the hop with us!