This year was the chilliest by far. The sun came out in short microbursts, mostly just to show us that it could shine, it just chose not to.

Enjoy these seven minutes of warmth, losers!

My mittens, which I packed in a slightly embarrassed “maybe I’ll need them at night” kind of way, hardly ever left my hands. I also broke down and bought a stocking cap for $2.50 at a nearby gas station. Best money I ever spent. Also, the presence of Furnace Puppy™ helped matters greatly (he alternated sleeping in our sleeping bags with us, coming up for air once in awhile to cool off before switching to the other sleeping bag).

Shorty was a trouper. Ever since we got him a sleeping pad to lie on outside, he’s been better at not seeming like such a city dog. (I have to sit on the ground? Like a DOG???) But that still didn’t prevent him from sitting on his pad and shivering (for effect – it was 50 degrees out) while looking at us dolefully.

The older he gets, the more mellow he is around strangers. He only barked at two people the entire weekend, and in fact, this was the first time we witnessed him initiating contact with people. I think he’s slowly realizing that: People want to pet me. Petting is nice. If I bark, people don’t pet me. Therefore, I should not bark.

(I had just asked him if he wanted to go for a walk. His answer was a polite HELL YES.)

He is the ideal hiking dog. This time, he actually led the way, although he still had the disturbing habit of running RIGHT UP TO THE EDGE before putting on the brakes so he could stare longingly at the 100-foot drops, all “Should I or shouldn’t I?” while I hyperventilated in the background.

He even seems to understand when we tell him which way to go. At one point, we came to a fork in the path and Shorty headed to the right. Without pulling on his leash, Jason said, “Nope, buddy. Let’s head to the left.” And he did.

You all right down there, man?

We’ve yet to time our trip with the leaves at their peak. Last year we were too late. This year we were too early. But it was still beautiful:

Our site didn’t have electricity (hello, ability to see my breath in the camper at night!) so we either grilled hot dogs on our portable grill or just got food from town (this is known as “roughing it”). We passed on this store’s offering:

(It was also misspelled both times on the other side of the sign, too. HEALHY!)

While Jason picked up food, I was in charge of Lighting the Campfire, my favorite thing. (Seriously, I search for kindling like an obsessed woman.) Unlike past years, the wood this year was dry.

With it being so chilly, we retreated to the camper most nights after the fire went out and played games, like cribbage (I’m slowly relinquishing my year-long lead in this year’s tournament), Yahtzee (Jason, after getting his THIRD Yahtzee: This game bores me) and “Guess the Song” with the iPod on shuffle (Jason: The Monkees are the most magical band in the land!)

All in all, it was a fun trip and we can’t wait to go back next year.

Although this time we’re gonna spring for an electric site.

Where was I? Oh yes, camping. So we headed to St. Croix Falls, where upon entering the campground we discovered they had just turned off the water for the season. No biggie. We just didn’t shower…for three days.

It was the day after our wedding anniversary, so when making a bottled water run, Jason made sure to pick up a few things to make our site fancy.

The leaves were a little past their prime, but were still absolutely spectacular.

They made our dog almost invisible.

The weather was perfect. It was chilly in the mornings, but by lunch we were in shorts. In fact, we had a record-breaking high of 87 degrees. Jason probably would’ve worn shorts if it was 19 degrees out.

We went on a lot of hikes. The rocks, trees and river were gorgeous.

Shorty gave me a heart attack every time we hiked, bounding over rocks without a second thought and sprinting to the edge so fast little pebbles fell over the ledge.

See, he thinks it’s funny when I screech his name in panic to stop him from dangling by his harness over a bunch of jagged rocks.

Jason also gave me a heart attack because there were lots of rock climbers out and about, and he took it upon himself to scale down a bunch of rocks so he could get a closer look at the river. A woman saw him and excitedly asked, “Oh, how long has he been rock climbing? How is he secured?” To which I replied, “Oh, he’s not secured AT ALL and if he slips, he won’t be rock climbing for long.”

Later I got stuck in a pothole.

And Jason tried to scare some people by faintly calling from this cave: “Help! I’m stuck! Helloooo? Send help!”

In the evenings, we listened to the stupid Twins get beaten by the stupid Yankees, while I enjoyed success (unlike last year) with the firewood. (Please note that because of the stupid Twins playing like losers against the stupid Yankees, Thome ended up not being my Homey.)

The next day, we ventured along a trail filled with abandoned trout ponds, which is where I walked my invisible dog.

We saw a dam.

One of the forest trails led directly to a Dairy Queen (like all hiking trails should), so we got Blizzards on the way back and the nice counter girl gave Shorty some ice cream. He was pretty much the happiest dog on the planet at that moment, which only made it awkward the next day when we stopped to get ice cream (again) for just ourselves.

Fall camping at its finest.

Besides the bugs, it was a marvelous weekend. Shorty was wonderful; he hardly barked unless another dog startled him awake with their own barking, or when he saw some horses for the first time during the parade. (You could tell his frantic barking meant, “WTF are these things?!? Dear god we’re all going to die!”) But he met all kinds of strangers and never barked once, leading one of our friends to say, “He’s matured.” A little girl from another campsite came over to pet him and half-squatted down, leading Shorty to try to climb into her half-lap. (That dog is the definition of a lap dog, I swear. You bend over to pick something off the ground and he’s trying to crawl into your lap.)

The kids were beside themselves: they had glow sticks, water guns, giant balloons and a 3-in-1 toy that served as a flashlight, glow stick and whistle (we didn’t tell them about the whistle part).

I’m pretty sure this was the tree hideout of the bird that crapped on my hand as I was eating my delicious dinner of tacos. He kept up the crap catapulting until we moved the picnic tables, but not before he delivered three or four more direct hits, hitting a plate of tortilla chips and a container of lettuce. Stupid sniper bird! His aim was deadly.

When we got home, we discovered someone left us a stowaway: Dolly Woodboy! Argh. Jason had me put him in the garage on our bikes and I’ll tell you what: the next six times I went into the garage that night I responded the same way: “GAAAAAAH!”

Then Jason wanted to put Dolly in Shorty’s kennel with him, but HAHAHHAHA. No way, Jose. Shorty barked his head off until we apologized and backed out of his room sheepishly. So while his barking at strangers has improved dramatically, his barking at creepy dolls is still at an all-time high. Which is good, because my nightmare is that that stupid doll will break out of the garage and try to kill us in our sleep.

I can’t think of a better way to spend a weekend (minus the bear).

What’s your 4th of July plans?

Then on Saturday night, another nasty storm blew through, sending us sheets of rain propelled by gusty winds, tornado warnings and angry lightning, so half of us took refuge in the basement while the rest of us decided not to get drenched in the pouring rain and stayed in the garage. We sat there huddled with our friends, their two kids and two dogs, and right after the radio announced, “[Town we were in] is in the bullseye of this storm,” and we started to get a little scared, Jason’s dad threw open the garage door and bellowed, “What are you guys doing?” We all jumped a mile and sheepishly ran for the safety of the basement. Seriously, the only way that moment would’ve been scarier was if he had been wearing a hockey mask and brandishing a smoking chainsaw. So we all sat in the basement, shivering wetly: eight adults, four kids and four wet dogs that smelled like, well, wet dog. After the robotic weather radio man finally gave us the all-clear, we shuffled outside to our campers.

And then the power went out.

And that is how we ended up going to bed before 10 pm in our damp camper listening to our popup shake every time the ground rumbled from thunder and counting “One Mississippi, two Mississippi…” every time lightning flashed.

Shorty slept through it all, obviously.

But besides the brief bad weather, the weekend was awesome. Lots of great food and games, and the kids had a blast on the bounce house, inflatable water slide and kiddie pool.

The adults played more Minute to Win It games.

Try to put the hat on your head. While it’s attached to a fishing pole. And you’re blindfolded.

Use a straw to suck up an M&M…

And transfer it across the way to deposit onto another straw.

Blow up a balloon and use the air to blow plastic cups off a table. (This one was my favorite. I skipped doing it last time because I figured “Me + Asthma = Nothing Good Can Come From This,” but it was easy.)

Stick a pedometer on your head and shake your head to see how many “steps” you get in 60 seconds. (This one hurts your neck SO BAD.)

Jason & Shorty were tuckered out. It was maybe 85 degrees, even though it was cloudy, but the humidity was INSANE.

Shorty was great. As spoiled at it may be, having a separate camping chair for him means he sits in it instead of getting wound up around other chairs or picnic tables. Jason & I even got to leave his sight to eat dinner. I went over to check on him and found him in doggie heaven, sitting contentedly in his camping chair while one of the men he used to habitually bark at was scratching him behind his ears. He did SO GOOD at not barking at people. SO GOOD. It might sound stupid, but we were so proud of him for being a good boy.

We kept Shorty on his cable tie-out because even though he gets along with all the other dogs that were there, he also likes to bolt for the road (and not listen when we yell for him to come back, choosing instead to bolt at high speed in the opposite direction). We did finally let him off-leash to play with the other dogs when they were running around the yard, and he immediately took off full-bore for the fastest dog, trying to herd her and play-growling the whole time, which is hilarious because his “growling” sounds exactly like trying to start a car with a dying battery: RowrRowrRowr. Then he got overexcited and started sprinting around at 100 mph and decided to take a flying leap onto his camping chair, which obviously wasn’t bolted to the ground, so he hit it hard, sent it flying and then did a nifty barrel roll while we laughed our asses off. He’s the best dog ever.