October 17, 2006

I started this day with an early morning walk down the trail by the primitive campsites with Madeline. I let her off the leash as soon as we hit the back trail. She always stays right behind me and never strays more than a few yards behind. After our walk, I sat by the river for a while and then we went to the public library in the nearby town.

Around 2:00, we took a 2 hour hike on a nearby section of the Appalachian Trail with Madeline sandwiched between us. The first section led us by the French Broad River for about a quarter mile, and then up the mountain at a steady and winding incline. The trail was lush with a canopy of hardwoods and the frequent conifer, the ground covered in a blanket of leaves in every fall color imaginable. At every stop along the way the view was breathtaking.

I was pleased to see that Madeline was able to keep up on this hike; it was her first long one in a couple of years and she managed with no trouble at all. The average lifespan of a Great Pyrenees is ten years, and she will be nine come December.

Following our hike, we went across the road to the Hot Springs Spa for a well-earned soak in one of their naturally spring-fed-mineral-water-hot-tubs. What perfect bliss!

My favorite thing to do in one of these tubs is to float on my back and stare at the canopy of trees that surround each hot tub and deck.

If it gets better than this I don’t even need to know about it.