Mountain Dog

Over the long weekend, Ruby and I joined B&F and the kids for a few days of camping. We went to Rock Lake, about 4 hours from Edmonton -- including 32 km on a gravel road (which accounts for nearly an hour of the trip).

Ruby spent a lot of time in a mountain river -- the name of which escapes me at the moment -- so cold that it numbed my feet quite literally to no feeling in less than a minute or two. She didn't seem to notice. She did get swept down stream by the current once and pulled under sweepers (trees fallen into the river). I thought she was a goner but she popped up in the middle of the branches and managed to get her front legs over the branches of one tree. F was pulling clothing off to go rescue her but as he moved down stream on shore she pulled herself laterally along the trunk (hilarious if I'd not been so worried) of the tree and then launched herself back into the river and swam to him. She and I then gave up the fly fishing (e.g. walking up river for a few kilometres crisscrossing the river as the terrain or depth and current might warrant).

Ruby is also a dog that despises being warm -- to the point she'll reject cuddling and gave up wanting on the bed as once she got there she found it too warm -- but the final night the temperature dropped to near zero and I finally as she was clearly actually cold opened my sleeping bag, dragged her inside where she sprawled out her full length against me and stayed put!

He Who is Now Landed was grandly sad he had to work and thus miss tent sleeping and living without a flush toilet or running water for a few days :)