Riding around the Centennial Mountains

You might think that I get tired of driving around with Dad on his many trips. Well, I don’t. It’s always fun to jump into the Jeep and lean my head out the window to smell all the animals along the road. I also enjoy jumping out at every stop that Dad points his black box at the flowers or other animals. I guess it’s the freedom to explore that makes me happy. Laying around the RV Park all day is OK, but driving with Dad is great.

We stopped in front of the west Centennial mountains. It's a beautiful day in Montana state!

This time Dad said we were going to drive completely around a big mountain range. I wasn’t sure what that meant but it sounded fun the way he said it. I took my favorite toy and jumped into the back of the Jeep. It was at least 15 minutes later that Dad finally came out and we left. (I get a little nervous that he might change his mind about taking me, so I like to hop in early and wait.)

The mountain range that we were going to drive around is called the Centennial Range in the states of Idaho and Montana. Dad said our RV Park lies at the NorthEast end of the range so we get to see the Eastern part quite a lot. We are going to circle it so we will get to see some of the western and southern part too. We should see some animals and of course, lots of flowers for Dad to point his black box at. I’m ready.

Dad found this Wild Rose that smelled so sweet!

Dad always drives slow so he won’t scare away the birds and the animals. The first bird that we saw was a big Red Tailed Hawk. He was sitting on a rock in a meadow looking for breakfast. It would be really hard work if I had to look for my breakfast every morning in the forest or meadows. It’s nice to have Dad fix it for me and serve it to me in the motorhome.

We spotted this big Red Tailed Hawk looking for breakfast at Red Rock Lakes Nat'l Wildlife Refuge.

Soon I spotted one of my favorite animals, a ground squirrel. He wasn’t on the ground though, he was on a fence post looking around. (Maybe he’s called a fence squirrel?) I barked and he ran away. I was proud that I could protect Dad from such scary creatures.

Dad loves the Western Bluebirds. He says they are so blue. (Duh!)

Dad stopped when he saw a Western bluebird flying. Dad pointed his box at the bird and he flew away. I don’t think birds like to be pointed at. There are lots of bluebirds here. Dad loves the bluebirds. I guess he like the color blue?

Dad said this was a ground squirrel. I think it is a fence post squirrel!

We drove along the mountains and stopped from time to time to let me sniff and Dad pointed his box at flowers. There were lots of flowers. I could smell them and most of them smell really sweet. I guess I like the flowers for their smells and Dad likes them for their colors. I don’t do color well and Dad doesn’t do smells well, so it fits!

I met a new friendly human on his bike machine. His name was Michael. He was going a far way.

We reached the Upper Red Rock Lakes campground and Dad stopped for a rest. I met a new friend named Michael. He was riding his bike machine from outside our country in Canada to Mexico. A very long ride. He liked me and I sniffed his bike machine. He was from a country far away called Switzerland. Dad says they have lots of high mountain there too! Dad pointed his black box at a Western Tanager, we walked down to the lake and then we left.

We saw a big black vulture bird eating a calf. Dad said a bear killed it. I bet the vulture paid him to do it!

Once we stopped because Dad saw a big Vulture (this is a big black bird with a sharp beak) eating a small calf. I was scared of the Vulture until Dad explained that a big Grizzly Bear probably killed the calf. (Then I was scared of the bear.! I wondered if the Vulture hired the bear to kill the calf, because I didn’t see the bear. If a bear killed the calf, shouldn’t he be eating it?)

We took a side road into the mountains once. I saw a creek flowing with water and lots of trees and flowers. I smelled a bear but didn’t see one (darn!). We reached the end of the road and I peeked over the end to see another road, but we couldn’t get to it in the Jeep. I guess the humans that owned this land didn’t want us to go any further. We turned around and went back to the main road, but we did stop a couple times for me to sniff.

On the south side of the mountains we saw a few deer. He just stared at us until I barked, then he ran away.

On the south side of the mountains we saw a lot of deer. I wanted to run after them but Dad wouldn’t let me out of the car to run. I enjoyed sniffing for the deer and I let Dad know when I saw them.

Dad said the willow trees that grow by the creek along the road is a great place to see Moose. But.. he also said they usually can only be seen near dark. They are afraid of humans and only come out when the humans go in. I don’t blame them since I understand that humans are allowed to shoot them. I bet it would be different if Moose had guns! I would also hide from humans if they were allowed to hunt dogs with guns. I was sorry that I couldn’t see a Moose. They are big and scary, but awesome to see and smell. Maybe another time.

A white Retriever was protecting the sheep. I wish I could do that!

I got tired looking out the window, especially after about 8 hours of riding so I laid down and tried to sleep. Suddenly I smelled something familiar, jumped up and looked out. I saw a whole field of sheep. I like sheep. There’s something about their smell I like. Then I saw a fellow Golden Retriever out with the sheep. He was a white retriever. He was in charge of the sheep and ran towards us to keep us away from the sheep. Dad says he was a working dog. I want to be a working do too! I could have lots of fun running after the sheep and protecting them.

Some big mountains were on the south side of the range too!

The mountains were nice on this side of the mountain range too. Dad stopped several times to let me out (and to point his box). By this time I was pretty tired so I laid down and slept. Before I knew it I was home and was happy to see Mom. She was sewing in the motorhome and soon I was asleep outside. Life was back to normal again.

There were lots of Sunflowers along the road for Dad to look at. They did smell sweet to me.

If you want to drive all around the mountains and creeks and lakes and see a lot of wild animals and wild flowers, come see me at RedRock RV Park this summer. Ask for Reggie. Most humans know me.

Arf

Reggie

Into the Montana Wilderness

Dad says that wilderness is a place that used to be everywhere before there were so many humans. It’s where humans don’t live and rarely mess up the place like they do in cities. Some wilderness allows humans to visit but under strict rules of behavior. They have to behave just like us dogs do!

So Dad said we were going to drive into some wilderness today. That sounded fun to me. I was expecting to see a lot of animals that live where humans don’t. I love to smell and see non-human animals. It’s good for my soul.

We drove to a place Dad called Gravelly Range in the State humans call Montana. First we drove for a long time along a highway that follows this long river Dad said humans call the Madison River. There were men standing along the river with those long poles with strings attached to the ends that they dangle in the water hoping to attract fish. I stuck my head out the window of the Jeep and let the smells of the countryside fill my nose. Cows dominated the smellscape, but I did smell some Elk, Moose and even some coyotes and bears. But alas, I didn’t see them along the highway. I did see the cows and I barked at them to keep them away from us.

We crossed the Madison River on our way to the wilderness.

We turned off the highway and drove over a bridge to cross the Madison River. Dad stopped to point his black box at the river and I felt the fresh spray of the water hit me in the face. I liked that. We climbed a hill and were soon on a bumpy road up a road named Johnny Ridge road. There were lots of wildflowers and lots of trees along the road. We stopped and Dad took my photo next to what he called Wild Blue Flax wildflowers. I don’t mind since he always gives me a treat when I’ve posed for him. It’s boring, but I like helping Dad with his pointing box.

Dad paid me to pose in the Wild Blue Flax wildflower patch. We stopped a lot!

Dad stopped a lot of times and almost every time he let me jump out and sniff around. Dad just lay on the ground with his black box pointing at flowers and I had all the fun running around and smelling things. Once, I knew that a skunk had been there recently. (That’s not hard to know!) I also smelled a bear but he wasn’t close by so I didn’t tell Dad about it. It gets him too excited. Dad said there were lots of beautiful flowers. You remember that one flower is about the same to me as another, but Dad gets his jollies shaken with each different flower he sees. However, there was one flower that had a very strong smell that I remember. Dad called it Hooker’s Onion.

This Hooker's Onion smelled really strong. Normally, I'm not interested in wildflowers.

We drove over really rough rocks and I bounced around in the Jeep. I hit my head once on the top, but it didn’t hurt me. I was kinda fun as I put my head out of the jeep to look around. Once we got near the top of the road I saw snow. It was the middle of July and there was snow on the ridge. I love snow. I was born in a place with lots of snow, so I miss it. Dad said that was quite a view, with blue sky, snow, green grass and finally yellow wildflowers.

I was happy to see some snow up here. I missed the snow. It's in the middle of summer.

We turned onto Gravelly Range Ridge Road (according to Dad’s expert sense of geography) and soon were on a wider less bumpy dirt road. There were views of mountains and fields of wildflowers and lots of animal smells everywhere. We stopped many times and I could look over the valleys to see the whole world from up here. There were fields that I could run and jump and smell. It was lots of fun up here.

We got to the top of Gravelly Range road and you could see forever or at least to Black Butte mountain.

Dad said the yellow flowers were called Old Man of the Mountain. They didn't look like humans to me!

The most common wildflower up here Dad called Old Man of the Mountain. They were all over the place and Dad pointed his black box at me when I was standing in them. Dad said they were yellow and resembled sunflowers with a big eye in the middle of each flower. Another very common one was called Sky Pilot. Dad said enjoyed the combination of the purple and the yellow everywhere he looked around him.

I got to see a lot of wilderness from the Jeep window along Gravelly Range Ridge Road.

We stopped to eat at Black Butte. There was even snow there.

We stopped to eat lunch next to a big rock growing out of the ground. Dad said it was called Black Butte and that it was the insides of an ancient volcano that once spit hot rocks from the Earth. Wow, I’m glad I wasn’t here then!

I could get out and run around and look into the valleys below. It was fun.

We drove for almost 60 miles along the ridge of this mountain range. We saw about 2 other humans, so I guess it qualifies as wilderness. There were a lots of small birds and Dad saw a red-tailed hawk too. We didn’t see any bears, but we did see some antelopes and deer. In fact, once two of them were eating together. Dad says that’s pretty rare to see them together. I didn’t even scare them away and Dad pointed his black box at them.

We saw deer and antelope grazing together on our way home.

We turned off the ridge road and went down into the Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge (whew, that’s a lot to type!) and followed a sandy road home. We stopped once in this large field with millions of wildflowers called the Lupine. Dad and I saw an Antelope and Dad pointed his black box at it.

Pronghorn was grazing in a field of purple Lupine wildflowers.

It was a nice day, but a long one. Dad said we drove 145 miles and it took us 11 hours to do that! I was tired of jumping in and out of the Jeep all day, but it was worth it. All the smells and the images will keep me busy dreaming outside the motorhome for days.

Arf

Reggie

Here's a map and virtual tour of the Gravelly Range Ridge Road that Dad made.

Canineland, a new country for dogs

Dad was telling me that today is Independence Day in the United States. It’s like any other day to me. I went out this morning, peed, pooped and sniffed. A normal day for me. But, Dad seemed to want to tell me what Independence Day means to humans. He seemed to want to talk, so I listened.

He mainly said that Independence Day is the day that humans celebrate the birth of their country, their freedom from paying taxes to another country and just a lot of happiness that the USA is here today, a place that humans can call their own.

I was thinking about a canine independence while watching the 4th of July parade at RedRock RV Park

Well, that got me thinking about how us canine members of the USA should feel about Independence Day and the concept of Independence. What do we dogs gain from this arrangement? I do my best thinking outside of the motorhome. I concluded after a long afternoon outside looking at the strange humans waving flags, drinking smelly potions, making loud noises with disgusting little scary things (Dad said they were called firecrackers) and stuffing themselves with more food than they should eat in a whole week that dogs don’t benefit too much from this holiday or from the Independence that humans have.

We are very dependent on humans. We are limited to eating 3 scoops of the same food every meal, every day of the year. We are tied and kept on leashes (most of the time.) We must do stupid tricks to impress the friends of our owners. We can’t drive a car, ride an ATV, or fly in a plane except in the cargo hold. We are subject to hearing our owners tell other people how stupid we are. We must endure a lot of things that humans don’t endure.

That led me to think that dogs should have their own country too. Humans who were unsatisfied with their owners in 1776 because they had few rights wanted to start their own country to gain more rights. I want to use this blog to rally support for a new canine revolution (Dad told me this word meant fighting for your rights.)

Now you must know that I am a non-violent dog. I like to think I’m even really friendly and I even like most humans. I don’t want to hurt them. But they need to know that we have much bigger, stronger and sharper teeth than they do. In fact a dog’s front teeth (humans call them canine teeth, but to me that’s all my teeth) are vicious weapons. Every dog has a set and needs no license to carry them. We can tear meat faster than you can blink, if we want. Our legs and neck are much stronger than a humans, and in my opinion, we are better hunters than humans. We can jump in an instance and push pretty hard. What that means is that we could (if we wanted) make quite a mess with a human’s life (not to mention his face.) So, we are not without bargaining means to accomplish this task of making a new and independent country for dogs. I think if we ask politely and make our needs clear, the USA government would give us a new country. If not, we could form an army of dogs to make our threats clearer to those that would not listen to our reasonable demands. After all, there are about 73 million of us in the USA and almost 63% of human households own one of us. That’s a pretty big group to bargain with.

There's plenty of room for a Canineland in Montana, Wyoming, Idaho and Utah.

The way I see it, humans in the USA have a lot of land they aren’t using in Wyoming, Montana, Idaho and Utah. In fact, Dad says most of those states are owned by the USA government. We could make our country in those places that humans don’t live. Our only request is that humans have our permission to enter it. Owners could come to visit us anytime, but they would have to walk. No cars, no ATVs, nothing noisy or smelly like that is permitted in the new country. Us dogs enjoy the fresh air and humans don’t seem to respect that.

I think Canineland could be made from unused lands in Idaho, Wyoming, Montana and Utah.

I propose that we would call our new country Canineland. That would leave no mistake about who it belongs to. I would gladly serve as the Supreme and most Dominant Pack Leader of the land, at least to get things started. I’d get some of my canine friends to agree on rules and we would build a large pack of canine protectors of our land. (Dad says a country needs an army to make sure other countries don’t take it back from them.)

Humans could visit Canineland but not on ATVs.

Canineland would not have many rules. We would freely form packs of friendly canines and find places to live that give us shelter from the cold and plenty of food to hunt. We would only eat as much as we need (this would eliminate most of the fat dogs that you see today.) There would not be any leashes or tie ropes of any kind allowed. Any dog could live in Canineland as long as he or she got along with the other members of the country, or at least in their own pack. Those that were too greedy or too violent would be given back to their owners in the United States.

Humans could walk or ride a bicycle to Canineland. No cars, RV's, or ATVs.

Humans that visited us could stay for maybe 14 days and sleep in caves or on the ground, but no motorhomes or RVs would be allowed. Humans could come visit us using their bicycles. Humans could bring dog snacks if they wanted to be nice. Those that brought snacks would be allowed to visit more often. Humans could not bring those noisy and dangerous things called guns or rifles into Canineland. Also knives (those sharp shiny sticks that some humans carry) would not be welcome. Humans could not hunt. That would be the job of the dogs only. All other animals (except humans and maybe cats and cows) could live in Canineland as long as they didn’t become too unruly or disruptive to our life style.

Humans would be pests in Canineland. No hunting, no guns!

There would be no taxes to be paid. Of course, the Supreme and most Dominant Pack Leader would be permitted to accept gifts of food from other country canines. It’s the least the others can do for him for the hard work of serving Canineland.

There's plenty of land and water in Utah for Canineland! Humans should give it to us for our new country.

So, if you are a canine wanting more freedom in your life, think about joining my canine revolution. Send me email and I’ll let you know the time and place to meet to start our new country. If you can’t get access to a canine ready internet computer, just smell your way to see me in Idaho.

Other animals could stay in Canineland like this Pronghorn. (We need some entertainment.)

Power to the Canines. Long live Canineland! (At least that’s what I think about this today. Maybe after a while I’ll think about this again and let you know.)

No cats in Canineland. (We must have some standards!)

Come see me at RedRockRV Park near West Yellowstone and we can have some real doggy talk about it.

The national flag of Canineland. Join the Canine Revolution. Free our oppressed brothers and sisters!

Reggie