Stinson Getaway

The cottage we rented in Stinson Beach was steps from the sand.  When we opened the front door, Harper would race down the steps and head straight for the beach.

One minute she's running this way...

And the next minute she's running that way.  Frankly, she mostly runs in circles.

Then she'll run up ahead and wait - impatiently - for you to catch up.

Harper adores playing fetch on the beach...

But her over-exuberance to get the ball usually lead to overshooting it just a tad.

"Throw it again!"

The three of us took multiple long walks every day on the beach.

Harper's enthusiasm was catching, and we would walk for miles and miles.

I used to complain bitterly about "Baton Death Marches" as a child when my parents would force me and my brother to take long walks on the beach.  Now, I finally get it.

Harper never complains about long walks, which makes her a more ideal ward than me.  She also doesn't mind finding big cigar-like sticks to play with.

Seeing this picture of my long-haired doodle made me realize maybe it is finally time for a haircut.  In a week or two she will look completely different, and definitely less of a fuzz ball.

Before we got to our cottage (i.e. before we were allowed to check in), we hit up the Bolinas Ridge Trail just north of Olema.

It was stunning and even came with some up-close views of cows.

Unfortunately, I'm not sure if it was from the cows or just from the long grass (there were no trees), but we managed to walk into a major tick infestation.  We didn't realize it until the car ride home when John and I started to find little bugs on us.  It turns out, we each had a half dozen on us and poor Harper girl had 100 ticks on her!!

They were the big ticks, called Dog Ticks, not the tiny Deer Ticks that carry Lyme Disease.  Our vet assured us that tick diseases in the area are very rare, but we still had to pluck every last one off of Harper (and ourselves).  Harper got about 20 tick "bites," but has shown absolutely no signs of illness, so the vet isn't worried.

What a way to start off a vacation!  It was pretty disgusting, to say the least, and in the future we will be much more careful about taking 5 mile hikes in areas with tall grasses.  (We also will be using not just tick-killing meds on Harper, but also tick repellent meds on Harper next time we hit the trails.)