"Suja" wrote:

A throughly enjoyable read! Thanks.

A few comments/responses follow:

So, we set out on Friday morning, relying on the GPS to get us 'there' -
where 'there' is a nearby town, 'cause apparently the device does not
consider National Forests to be points of interest.

Out of sheer curiosity, what GPS do you have?
I've been using hand-held Garmins for geocaching for several years, and
while I've found them somewhat useful for traveling purposes, as well, I'd
never depend on a GPS as my primary or only navigation tool.


On the way up, we had seen a truck driving along with a guy with an
antenna
in one arm, sticking out. On the way down, we ran into them again, and it
turned out, these folks had lost 4 dogs the night before (he called them
his
'bear dogs') when they took off after a bear. He had tracked one down
with
its GPS collar, and it was in the back of the truck, but he was hopeful
that
his dogs might've approached us because of our dogs. No such luck,
unfortunately.

Wow. I wonder if he ever found them....


We found a small stand of evergreens, he dug a hole in the leaf
litter, and curled up in it (WTF?).

Dafi, the Sibe we had years ago, used to dig himself holes like that.

. Rajesh took pity on him and stood over him with his rain jacket making
a little
umbrella over his head, and so we stood for what seemed like a long time.

Aww. You DO know you're blessed in your hubby, right? ;-D

Got in, dried ourselves off, and
yes, the rain stopped at that point.

A perfect example of the sub-variant of Murphy's Law known as the Umbrella
Law.


Definitely doing this again. Some place a little closer to home

I think I saw this mentioned in another thread.... have you considered
Shenandoah? I have fond memories of hiking there with a friend and my dear
old Pepper, about 15 years ago.