Puppy Goes to the Mountains

This weekend we took our new puppy, Seamus, on his first little outing in the woods. We packed up and headed out to Paint Creek Campground near Greeneville, TN on the northern edge of the Cherokee National Forest. Paint Creek turned out to be a nice little campground very far off the beaten path. I can't believe that anyone actually makes it out that far, but lo and behold it was filled up by dusk. The only method we have for finding these campgrounds is a guidebook. But it looked like many of the other folks there were locals. Particularly the burly ladies I borrowed a can opener from (terrible packing oversight).

The little bugger was a pretty good boy, save for some unnecessary barking at neighbors, and a 2 AM out-of-tent rest stop. He liked the falling leaves and his first sighting of a large body of water (no swimming lessons yet). He's only about 5 months old, but soon enough, he'll get his own backpack and be ready to hit the trail for real.