Cooper's Excellent Adventure

I don't take the children out on long walks often.  It's too hard trying to control two out of control puppies.  Especially when one just hates dogs ... that would be Jessie.  I come back with rope burned hands from grabbing the leash when she charges dogs ... any and ALL dogs.  Cooper on the other hand, is a sweetie who loves dogs and people ... the perfect hiking companion.

For this excellent adventure, we went back to the river, just to see if he would jump in again.  This was his second favorite part of the adventure ... tall grass.  There's just something about the smell of tall grass.  He barreled right through it, coming out covered in stickies.

With most of them picked off, we headed down the path to the river to see what trouble we could get into there.

The river has slowed and dropped a bit, making for some beautiful scenery.  Cooper barked.  Really? There's no one here.  Uh oh ... maybe it's a deer ... or a BEAR!!  YIKES!!  The sun was in our eyes and I couldn't see into the shadows on the other side of the water.

Then I heard "quack" ..... "QUACK" ..... Cooper discovered a large group of baby ducks.  They swam all around getting breakfast off the water, nine in total.  When I saw Cooper look further upstream, my eyes followed his.  There were two more groups of babies, each with a mom close by.

With a quick quack from this mom, they all buried their heads in the bushes on the far side.  Lucky for me, Cooper decided NOT to jump in the river after them.  Thanks baby dog .... that was pretty fun!!

On the way back, we stopped at Cooper's FAVORITE thing ... fence posts.  He had to stop and smell EVERY SINGLE ONE!!  I'm sure there was no one he knew, but he was insistent on getting every molecule into his nose.  

It was a rough day ... Cooper the Adventure Dog quickly crashed on the couch ... never far from his ball.  I'm going to try and do this more often.  I got a nice three hours without playing the ball game!!

By now we're back up to the 100's temperature wise, which is why we didn't do anything the day before and had no intention of doing anything yesterday.  My Sis-In-Law wanted to go to lunch and maybe check out a little store in Eagle, just down the road.  Who could resist that?  Our first stop was Smoky Mountain Pizzeria Grill ... and what a great stop it was.  

This rather large pizza, a big salad and all you can drink soda was $9.79.  Best pizza I've had in a long time!!  Unfortunately, half of it got left in Lynda's cold box in her car.  I'm sure she will enjoy it!!

About that time, her son (my nephew) Travis and wife Brandi, along with his son (great nephew) Tyler called about having dinner.  Lunch was at 2:00, but what the heck ... lets have dinner.  We met at El Gallo Giro for some good Mexican food.  Ugh ... I'm stuffed.   

I got home at 8:30 with the thermometer still reading 100 degrees.  It's time to get out of Dodge ... or Boise as the case may be .... and head to cooler country.  Baker City Oregon is on the agenda for today.