Turtles

Turtles have begun to appear while biking and hiking. The dogs and I saw a big one at Pony Pasture. This is Max and Roux investigating the first large one we saw, Thursday morning at Pony Pasture. That's about as close as they got; they're not fond of turtles:


This is a smaller (obviously) one we came across on Sunday, June 28:

Post-river hike with Aileen

Aileen (oldest of 5 nieces, oldest of 2 god-daughters) came to town for a quick visit today; we took Ivory, Mackey, Max and Roux to Pony Pasture and had a great hike. We got a few good pictures post-hike:

Aileen, Max, Ivory, Roux, Mackey

Jay, Aileen
Mackey, Max, Roux, Ivory

Name this person and these dogs:

Changing energy levels:

Max, Ivory and Mackey at the trailhead on Friday evening, before we headed down. To see where this picture was taken, click on this link. Raring to go:

Same dogs, Saturday morning, preparing for the return trip. To see where this picture was taken, click on this link. Their enthusiasm appears to be slightly diluted:

Appalachian Trail fauna

Ran into this little guy (perhaps gal) on the hike down on Friday and again on the hike out today - multiple times. They're not at all rare. Click on it to make it much larger. It's the Eastern Newt, Notophthalmus viridescens. If you'd like to learn more about it, this is the wikipedia entry: Eastern Newt:

Dog Party on the Appalachian Trail!

After spending Friday night (June 5, 2009) at the Paul C. Wolfe Memorial Shelter we (Ivory, Mackey, Max and I) were hiking back out on Saturday morning. The shelter is next to Mill Creek, a couple miles north of Humpback Rocks. We were parked at Humpback and I guess we were halfway back when we ran into four more delightful dogs! Unbelievable. I wish I'd caught all their names. And the people's. But I do recall that Hobbit (she was from Illinois) was the one taking the pictures. Her dog is in the foreground, with the red backpack on, the only one who was really working for a living. I think her name was Madison or Matty or Maddy but that may have been another dog. There were a lot of "M" names. She's a Border Collie but she was shaved to keep ticks down. She was ~3.5 years old and extremely well mannered.

By the way, click on that picture if you want to see a larger version.

I think the guy's name (on my right) was Dennis, but I may have misunderstood. If either of you email me correct information, I'll fix this post. He had three dogs; you can only see all three of them in the bottom picture, but of course Ivory's looking away. I only remember one of his dog's names - it was "Little." Look at the picture and try to guess which one was "Little." Here's a hint: the name is not descriptive.

Anyway, fun to see everybody, I hope you have a great hike. Take it easy,

Jay

Ivory at MCV - 2002