Picnic in the moorlands

It is still summer in Holland and M wants to savor as much good times as possible. We were home for some time after our long summer holiday and then M packed the campervan again and we went away! To a beautiful place in Holland, with moorlands and woods and big trees in little lakes.

This time P did not come with us and M’s mother joined us. Which is great, because she is sweet and she loves little white rolls and shares them with me! Awesome. You can imagine I had a great time. We walked and had picnics in the field and walked. Luckily not as far as our last long walk, which was a bit too much. Just nice long walks, with plenty of time to rest and enjoy the landscape.

Exhausted

Some things in life are obvious. Like the fact that dogs need a walk every day. Not just a ten-minute-stroll-around-the-block, but a real walk. To an exiting place, like the beach or the park. My humans know this and we walk a lot. Which is nice.

But one can overdo this a-long-walk-every-day stuff. Humans tend to do that sometimes, don’t they? They don’t just exercise, which is good, but they exercise too much. My humans don’t do this, normally, they are reasonable and intelligent. They know when it is healthy to exercise and when it is time to stop and rest. However, yesterday something went wrong. We walked and walked and walked. And when we stopped to have lunch, I thought we would take a train or a car or something to go back home, but we didn’t. We walked all the way back!

We walked more than 30 kilometers. And that, I can tell you, is exhausting. Even for a well trained dog like me, with my long legs and strong muscles. When I got home, I wolfed down my food and went to sleep immediately (with Chuck, who had stayed home all day, the lazy bastard).
Jeez. I do hope my humans won’t do this again.

Back home

I am home again. No more mountains for walking, but the vast beach for running!

I met some new friends and we ran together. I like that!

The holiday was grand, traveling through Europe and hiking in the mountains and vineyards of Italy, Germany and France. I had a great time and so did M and P. But it is good to be back home again. I do like going on holiday and having Adventures abroad. But if I am very honest about holidays: the part I like best is coming back home. And finding that the beach is still here, and all my soft beds and my favorite viewpoint from our house.

Pyjama nights

We are in the mountains again! Not just some mountains: we are in the highest part of the Alps, M tells me. We are camping at the roots of the Mont Blanc. That is an enormous mountain, topped with loads of ice and snow. The landscape is rough and so are the walks. I love running in rocky terrain, so I like it here. I do have to wait for M and P all the time, because they are slow. But I don’t mind, I am good at waiting.

There is a downside to camping at the roots of mountains like this: the nights are very cold. I usually do not approve of clothing for dogs; I think humans are wrong to think we need clothes, since we are very well equipped to keep ourselves warm. We have fur, right? But in this case I am glad M brought me a pyjama, to keep me warm in the nights. My body is not made for icy mountain weather, so I kind of need this to get through the nights. It keeps me nice and warm, a bit like my snoozebag at home. Here we are, having breakfast in the freezing morning:

However, as soon as the sun comes out it gets warm. So I get rid of my pyjama and lie basking in the warm sunlight. Nice.

Wine and walks

We moved to another region in Italy, a pretty spot with hills and old towns perched on hilltops. They make a good wine here and that is why M and P wanted to come to this place. My humans like to mix good food and drink with nice walks. We are doing some fine hiking in this landscape.

I like the walks. I do not care much about wine, but I do like bread. They happen to make fine bread here, too! It tastes like crunchy little white rolls. Lucky me!

I am glad that M and P share these Italian bread sticks with me. Nice.