New friends in the campground, human and canine

Katie and I had so much fun in Sedona and Cottonwood.  The area is beautiful, the weather was perfect, and there weren't any bugs flying around to ruin sitting outside during the day or evening.  It was really nice.

We made new friends and did a lot of visiting.  One of my favorite new camping buddies is Steve:

Such a handsome boy!  Steve is quiet, super well-behaved and he loves to play.  He's really good at paying toss and fetch with either a ball or a stick.  He loves playing ball and played by himself in a way I've never seen before.  His owner, Dean, said Steve used to have a football he'd play with.  He'd put the ball between his legs and kick it back behind him with his front paws so it flew backwards.  Like he was "hiking" a football.  Then he'd run to get it and hike it again.  He didn't have the football, so he was hiking the tennis ball and running after it.  When he wasn't playing ball, he picked up sticks for us to throw.  He was so entertaining!

Dean and I were camped near each other in Sedona and when we moved to Cottonwood we met Dale, who was not far up the road from where we were.   We got lots of visiting in during the two weeks we were there.  Here's Steve with his dad, Dean, and Dale on the right.

Dean is a pretty active outdoors guy and went mountain biking and hiking and running in Sedona, always with Steve, who keeps up on 10+ mile rides. 

Dale does a lot of walking and sometimes stopped to visit on his way to or from the long road down to the river.  You can read Dale's Blog, My Trails, here.  He thru-hiked the entire Appalachian Trail in 2012 and posted about it starting here, April 2 and ending September 28, 2012.  

I'm reading the A.T. section of his blog and it's really interesting.  I've never known anyone who thru-hiked the A.T.  According to The Appalachian Trail Conservancy website, "Completing the entire 2,190 miles of the Appalachian Trail (A.T.) in one trip is a mammoth undertaking. Each year, thousands of hikers attempt a thru-hike; only about one in four makes it all the way.  A typical thru-hiker takes 5 to 7 months to hike the entire A.T."  Impressive, right?   I'd love to undertake something like that, but on a MUCH smaller scale.  

So here I am meeting up and visiting with men who are really active - way above my activity level - and I think they may have put a fire under me.  Wouldn't that be nice?  I really need to get out and exercise more, but I have to say it helps to have a walking buddy.

Another new camping friend, who I actually met first, was John.  I met John and Dean when we were camped at Sedona in the Coconino National Forest.  After our 14 day limit was up, we all ended up moving to Cottonwood in the Prescott National Forest, so we had another 14 days there.  John was camped closer to the main road, and we visited him in his camp or he visited us in our area.  Sure was fun.


My last night at Cottonwood before heading south, John treated Dean and me to dinner in town.  We all had a great time; the company and food were both delicious.  Thank you, John!  

I just have to show you more pictures of Steve.  I took so many of him.  He'd go out into the desert and search out the perfect stick for us to throw.  Some were big, some were little - he'd chase after them all and return them for another throw. 

He never watched the stick, he'd keep his eyes right on the human's eyes.  

This was a long stick, it had more little branches coming off it that got knocked off after a few tosses:

Here's a little fat stick.

Waiting for the throw - so intense:

This was a good one - I'd love to see him try to bring this one through the door:

Waiting for someone to pick up his stick to play:

The other thing I got such a kick out of was when Steve would walk away from me.  The way his coloring is configured, his back legs and butt are black and his feet are white.  As he was prancing away and all I could see was his rear, it looked like he had black ballet tights on.  LOL - made me laugh every time.  I tried to get a good photo, but these kind of show what I mean:

Katie was really interested in this stick tossing stuff and wanted to play, but she also wanted to chew on the sticks which were really dry and brittle.  I didn't want her getting part of a branch stuck in her throat so I put her in the stroller.  Poor thing, mean Mommy, but Katie got to run around and chase her ball, too, and she had a good time.  I think watching Steve running around and having so much fun got Katie excited to do the same thing, and one day especially she was really running and playing with John and chasing her ball like her old self. 
 

So...  I'm hoping to meet up with all my new friends down the road.  Friday afternoon I left our camp and drove to Quartzsite to stop off on my way to San Diego.  More on that next time.

From me and Katie, have a great day, everyone!  ❤❤❤