We went to camp and play USDAA at the Trapp Family Lodge last weekend and it was a lovely and relaxing experience. The agility was hard, and we didn’t do a lot of whole courses, it felt like the right thing to me. At the end of the weekend, after trying the team game courses, we had one last run, P1 Snooker (or as I call it, “baby snooker”). It was possible to run an easy course and get a lot of points. I made my plan and went back to the tent, chair, and dog to wait. I had been in big classes, so I sort of had the illusion we had a lot of time before our run. Not true. Suddenly I heard the gate steward (it was Kit Erskine, and he – mercifully at this moment – has a BIG voice), I heard him say “something-or-other is one the line and Chico is on deck!” That means we are next dog in the ring, and have approximately 50 seconds to be in the ring and on the line before they go on to the next dog and we lose our turn. Grabbed the dog, sprinted more than the length of the ring to the in gate, ran in the ring, set up, ran. Got my whole course, got the whole closing, won the class. Had to dunk my head in the water to cool off afterwards, but it was a “fun, fun, fun ’til daddy takes the t-bird away” run.

And there were other highlights of the weekend. The location itself was one of them.

View from our campsite.

Home sweet home for three nights, only one of them rainy. And it stayed nice and dry! Of course, that was after the rain fly went on. One delight of this sort of camping is the abundance of smart devices that can provide by the hour weather projections, allowing one to sometimes be brave and sleep without the rain fly.

Supper the first night, cooked on my little camping stove.

A dog event becomes quite the little village.

There are beautiful gardens, and I never saw a red lupine before! The family seems to be into a lot of interesting agricultural ventures. Cows, chickens, sheep, goats – I saw ’em all.

Dinner in the ex pen. Water in my cup because the other bowl was hiding.

Sunrise after the rain.

Mist on the mountains.

Tired dog takes a mid-day break.

Made-in-the-custom-made-shade between runs.

The stage where the Trapp Family Singers perform.

We were encouraged to take our dogs up there for a pic. The first time we went to this meadow (me sans camera) Chico ran right up on stage and posed. This time, not so much. The ground was way more interesting.

So that’s where Chico was headed, and I didn’t care enough to change it. This was a break; free play for the dog.

Even balloon rides out of Stowe!

It was a fun weekend, Chico was able to hang out by me when I had dinner with my neighbors, we took some nice walks, ate some good food, drank wine, laughed, and generally enjoyed ourselves. At least, I think Chico had fun. It seemed like it.