Camping Trip- Complete with EXPLOSIONS!!!

I am not from out west.  At all.  In fact I am from a place called liberal-peace-love-WhyDoYouNeedaGun-enviromentalist-ville.  Well we went camping on a friends BLM mining claim in Nye County.  Nye county is the opposite of liberal-peace-love-WhyDoYouNeedaGun-enviromentalist-ville.  I am pretty sure that EVERYTHING that the federal government allows to be legal is legal in the wild west that is Nye County.  Gambling?  For sure!  Prostitutes?  Absolutely!  Fireworks?  Ha- did you even have to ask!!  Guns?  LOL.  Of course guns.  Oh- I almost forgot!  While you are out with your AR15 in the desert and shooting off fireworks feel free to tell the prostitute you hired that she can stay occupied by panning for gold on government land!

That may sound a little sarcastic- but honestly there are some things I am liking about living out here.  One of them is that I get to experience a lot of new things.  Like on this trip I shoot a handgun!  And I must admit it was kinda fun.  Don't tell Ben, or he might divorce me, but I am kinda excited to go to a range and shoot more.  But that is just handguns.  I personally am happy to never hold an assault rifle ever again in my life.

You may be asking "Annie, what do the dogs think about all this shooting stuff?"  I am happy to report that Kerri could care less about gun shots.  Copley does not mind the 22s.  (P.S. 22,  .22, Twenty Two??  How does that look on paper?  What does it even mean??).  He looks around a little uneasily with the rifles that are meant to shoot rabbit/deer with (I'm good at these technical gun terms eh?).  Overall they are fine tied up at a campsite with people shooting nearby as long as they have a friendly person sitting with them.  They are however NOT ok with exploding targets.  That's right- EXPLODING TARGETS are a thing that both exist, are legal and you can go buy at Bass Pro Shops and other fine retailers.

So the first target went off and it was a little boomier than I had imagined.  Copley totally panicked and I had to spend the whole rest of the time while they blew these things up in the car with Copley and Kerri in their car crate and the music and AC blaring.  I will not be torturing the dogs like this ever again and exploding targets are offically not allowed while Copley is around.

 

I do have to say that this camping trip was exactly what our family needed.  It had been a rough month and we needed some time out in the wilderness.  Turns out redneck time in the wilderness is still relaxing so everything worked out just fine.  The dogs were POOPED for this trip.  They had just spent a week with our friend Mosby and his people and they were totally wiped out from all that playing.  It was an emergency trip, the sort of thing where you call your friends and drop your dogs off with them on your way to the airport at midnight, and I am so grateful that we have friends who are reliable and trustworthy enough to help us out like that.  Truthfully I don't even know if I sent them with any food.  Mosby eats raw too so I am sure they managed but I can't say I even left them prepared.

Back to the camping trip.  Lucky Kerri was tired because she never had to use her legs on this trip.  On our first day of camping we were with some young people one of whom could not get enough of Kerri.  And we all know Kerri loves kids as much as they love her!  They have a dog at home but the whole family was just goo goo over how small she was and held her all day.  The second day we were joined by Kerri's favorite person (who incidentally is also Nova's favorite person, the first person she EVER approached and took food from other than me) and Kerri's favorite person's girlfriend who is probably Kerri's second favorite person.  Why does Kerri love these people so much?  They fall for her chihuahua charm and pick her up any time she looks at them.  They also come running every time she whines and generally cater to her every wish.  Kerri was in chihuahua heaven.

As you can see from the pictures Copley literally slept the entire trip.

I probably should have blogged more about the new harness we got and the new tie out system that is working great and how Nova is still not coming on camping trips but is getting better and lots of other dog stuff like that... but you know, it has just been one of those months.  So instead I will round this post out with desert wildflowers we saw on our trip.