Pillsbury State Park

This past weekend, we headed up to New Hampshire's Pillsbury State Park. We left on Thursday and arrived shortly after dark. On our way up, we stopped by the Common Man, a restaurant we have stopped at frequently before, to enjoy a hearty meal. Jeffrey had some seafood saute and I enjoyed the pot roast. Yum. We've had many good meals here.

Campsite #40 was about a quarter of a mile hike in. We had to walk our stuff into the campsite. I am glad I got lights for both of the dogs even though they probably didn't need them. Riley's done this with us enough times and Sabrina is very good about staying with Riley or staying close to me. But you can't put a price on peace of mind. Being Sabrina's first night camping trip and first night outside of the house, I was pleased what a good girl she was.

Riley was a good boy, willing to share his air mattress with his little sister, who just loves to cuddle with him!

Every morning, just as dawn crept in to push out the night, the dogs were up and ready to get out of the tent. And the rodeo life we experience everyday in our kitchen at home was transported to the campsite. There was wrestling, there was chasing, there was digging and rolling and splashing. Needless to say, the dogs got pretty dirty, especially since we had gotten a little bit of rain during the night. We were able to take Sabrina out on the boat for the first time and good thing we kept the leash on her! She was thrilled to watch the ripples of water pass by the boat and tried her best to jump out to catch the pond grass. When we slowed the boat down in the middle of the pond for some fishing, the dogs settled down to take a nice leisurely nap. Our two dogs could not be any more different in personality. Sabrina decided that smack dab in the middle of the boat was the perfect spot for her to roll over on her back, extend her paws over her head and out as far as they could reach and take a snooze. Riley preferred to carefully curl up next to my feet and keep his head in my lap.

Since Sabrina was still too young to do any hikes, we basically took it easy and hung around the campsite. Our site was very nice. We had our own access to the pond and had a lot of privacy. Here is a view of the pond from our campsite:
Everyday the dogs and I took a short hike near our campsite while Jeffrey went running. Some times we spent the time gathering fallen twigs and branches to start the evening fire. The dogs were a great help, dragging sticks back to camp with me. Along one trail I found delicious little morsels of blackberries growing wild. Sabrina quickly learned to pick them right off the bushes! More please!





The great outdoors was peaceful, especially at dawn and after dusk. Along with raccoons, chipmunks, and squirrels, we were neighbors to the loons as well as this beautiful, and large, bird. I'm guessing it's a woodpecker. It bears a strong resemblance to Woody the Woodpecker.