Another cold night...

So I'm in McDonalds in Farmville using the free wifi. I slept in my backup tent (much bigger and heavier) last night 40 feet from a pond on a farm. It was a great sunset and some of my cousins friends were over helping themsleves to fish in the pond.

The flip side is that I woke up to frost on the tent and my car's thermometer 20 minutes after sunrise said it was 33 degrees... I'm supposed to be in the warm part of Virginia. That was the same conditions I had in the mountains of Shenondoah. And it was crazy windy to add to it.

Max has his first real injury of the trip.  Lets just say we now know he didn't grow up on a farm with barb wire fences for stock animals.  He tried to run right through it in the dark and tore a four inch piece of skin off of his front leg.  I bandaged it for the first two days but it kept getting soaked so I gave in and he's now licking responsibly.  That and I'm dousing it with peroxide until we have a real scab.  He also had another wierd injury that I'll let you look into for yourself here.  Its always eventful down here at Mason's Funny Farm.

So I hope you realize that I intend to update older posts with the photos and videos that go with them, right?  I havent been at a good web connection for a few weeks and have tons of material to upload.
I'm sick of poeple talking about bears everywhere I go. I got a full rundown on every bear interaction that has occured over the last 15 years from my cousins friends. I understand that they mean well, but when there have been 3 sightings (not personal sighntings, but just reported sightings) in 6 years in the entire county, its just not worth talking about. It's like people think they are going to give me bad dreams or something. If they only knew my bad dreams in a tent are all made up of falling limbs, waking up to a frozen Max, and getting piss all over my stuff.

I've also noticed that campfires just keep me up late... I have been alseep by 930 the last two nights and my sleep/wake cycle is finally catching up with being outdoors so much. That's good. The flip side is that I have heard (and not confimred) that a clean (no food) fire keeps the animals away because they dont like the smoke. Fine, but what about the ashes 4 hours after the fire is out. That's when it would matter to me...

So far the farm is full of way too much combustable material and its 6-8 inches deep in large spots, so if I had gust take an ember, it would be very hard to see where it went because it would probably dissapear in the 12inch long trampled haygrass that covers most of the area I have explored so far. It also was pretty windy last night, so maybe it will be a day by day thing. In addition to those factors are the smoke and the cough you can have the next day... Not fun :)

I have had a few fun conversation that had great poetic quotations (in a southern accent):
"I told him you have to go sit with your rifle in that grove of cedar trees in the afternoon and you'd get at least one. They ain't gonna let you keep them away from thier salad patch."
Five minutes into talking with a guy "I knew an hour ago that he ain't no Lab.  A Black Lab woulda been in that water by now."

I'll start writing them down more often when they happen.

So based on the weather, I'm considering getting moving in two days, to where I'm not sure yet..
Today
Sunny. Highs in the lower 70s. West winds 5 to 10 mph.
Tonight
Mostly clear. Lows around 40. West winds around 5 mph in the evening...becoming light and variable.
Thursday
Partly sunny. Highs in the lower 70s. South winds 10 to 15 mph.
Thursday Night
Mostly cloudy. Showers likely...mainly after midnight. Milder. Lows in the mid 50s. South winds 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 70 percent.
Friday
Rain in the morning...then showers likely in the afternoon. Cooler with highs in the upper 50s. West winds 5 to 10 mph...becoming north 10 to 15 mph with gusts to 25 mph in the afternoon. Chance of rain 80 percent.

Friday Night
Partly cloudy in the evening...then clearing. Much cooler with lows in the lower 30s.
Saturday
Sunny. Highs in the upper 50s.
Saturday Night
Mostly clear. Lows in the lower 30s.
Sunday
Partly sunny. Highs in the lower 60s.
Sunday Night
Mostly cloudy with a 50 percent chance of showers. Not as cool with lows in the mid 40s.
Monday
Cloudy with a chance of showers and thunderstorms. Highs in the lower 60s. Chance of rain 50 percent.
Monday Night
Mostly cloudy. A chance of showers and thunderstorms in the evening. Lows around 40. Chance of rain 50 percent.

And Farmville has a great classic rock station with no country music!

I'm looking for the next place to go. Smokey Mountian National Park is off limits to dogs. I'm going to look into the surrounding national forests and state parks for something with a hut like I was at in Shenondoah.