Sammie Gets His Camping Badge

Our dog Sammie has finally gotten used to Tree Ring.  

Normally he is hyper vigilant and stays alert the entire time we're there.

But he's starting to relax. 

While he still can't wait to get back into the truck to go home, he appears to actually enjoy being there.

While the shovel made a handy leash holder, we found we could let Sammie off the leash without him wandering off.  This is really remarkable, and something we could never do in the City.

I suspect that in the country he looks to us to protect him.  In the City, he knows that protection is his job.

The gophers seem to have relaxed too.  They think there is buried treasure somewhere on Tree Ring and have told all their friends.  The hills are sometimes taller than Sammie.

We only saw one other animal on our trip.  A gopher tortoise that wasn't very happy to see us.  So far I've counted 5 gopher tortoise holes on Tree Ring.