Trail time at Tolmie State Park

After a great beach experience it was time explore the 4 Cedars trail and that included...

CRITTERING!!!

Five minutes into our trail hike, D'light just about lost his mind

Once the squirrel was up high enough, it had a lot to say back to D'light

D'light is barking and carrying on in the video and you can hear the squirrel making a racket as well!

It was time to move on and D'light was in full on critter mode!

No slowing down and we do a lot of trail running with D'light!

When he does stop it's to smell the air to see if he can get a whiff of a critter

This was a lovely trail!

Stay tuned for more trail adventures!

D'light gets his feet wet at Tolmie State Park

 

With the whole beach to ourselves, D'light had plenty of time and space to venture closer to the water.  

D'light finds a number of tidal pools to walk through

 

Getting closer and still such much to investigate and smell!

Looking fantastic and having a good time!

D'light decides to follow dad towards the water

Brave D'light  helping dad to check out rocks in the water!

Time to wrap up our time on the beach...

Such a great experience for D'light!  While he will never be a water dog, he found out that getting his feet wet was a fun time.

We start heading back

"Oh wait! There's a tree down here - where are the critters?"

We head back up the trail and stay tuned for our next adventure at Tolmie State Park!

 

 

So much to smell at Tolmie State Park

We use the environment a lot to bolster D'light's confidence.  This also increases his curiosity about the environment which is fantastic as the environment can provide a tremendous amount of enrichment.

On this trip we are seeing a sweet boy who is engaged and curious about all the smells and textures of the beach front.

No worries about walking in the sand or on the rocks.  

There's no time to worry when there so much to smell

He finds a dead crab and boy was that interesting!

There were lots if tiny crabs and shrimp in the small tide pools. Those little critters moving around was pretty interesting to D'light.

He found this sand dollar and it stunk!

D'light begins venturing out towards the water

More barnacles to investigate

Watching the tide roll in and having a super time

How close does D'light get to the water?  That's for the next blog post!

We check out Tolmie State Park

We've had a good stretch of beautiful weather and that gives us lots of opportunity to get out and about.  D'light loves to travel and I was looking for a new park for us to check out.  I landed on  Tolmie State Park  for a couple of reasons.  We were going to be in Thurston County and I wanted a park that had water access and hiking wooded trails.  Tolmie was a perfect choice!

You do need a Discover Pass for this park

We arrive and D'light is ready for some fun!

We walked through a patch of woods to get to the trail leading down the beach. D'light is ready to critter and says "who cares about the beach!"

D'light is curious about where we are headed

"Let's go check it out!"

Lots to see and smell

So why did I choose this location?  Last year we took D'light to Lincoln Park and D'light was uncomfortable with the environment (water, beach, rocks on the beach).  We've done a lot of environmental adventures with D'light since our Lincoln Park trip so, I wanted to see if we could create a positive "water" experience for D'light.  And our plan was that if it was too overwhelming we'd ditch the water and go have fun on the trails at the same park.

D'light is wearing his 25 foot long line and he has complete control of where he wants to go.  He starts off with hugging the part of the beach closest to the trees.  

We see a big difference in D'light pretty much immediately. His body is relaxed, he's curious about the environment and he's showing independence from us.

His nose quickly gets to work  - there's A LOT to sniff on this beach.

He begins venturing over to inspect something that he finds curious

A fallen tree with lots of decaying plant material attached to it

So much to inspect and smell

Another tree that has lots of barnacles attached to it

D'light is feeling pretty confident and ready to explore more of the beach.  We timed our trip well - we were the only ones on this section of the beach.

Lovely view of Mt. Rainier
 

Stay tuned to see how D'light does as we explore more of the park area!

Curiosity got Cat!

Catty and I decided to walk through Mount Baker Park...

We were checking out the pond...

Catty decided to venture into the water, wanting to investigate a stick.  In a split second, she lost her footing which created an unexpected swim!

Here's Catty after her swim and she was not pleased about the mishap.  

Funny girl thought this was a good way to get off all the pond material!

Dirty, dirty girl!

"That was embarrassing - let's not tell anyone about this"

WEEEEEE... Catty showing off her spunky self!

More rolling and since I knew she was getting a bath at home she was free to get as dirty as she wanted!

"I'm not that dirty and I don't need a bath when we get home!"

"Remember that we are not telling anyone about this!"

Time to hit the road!

As you can see her little pond adventure didn't slow her down a bit!

We head home and take the step - up, up up!

"Why are we stopping, lets find more stuff to do!"

"Look mom, pretty much all that pond gunk is gone so no bath needed!"

Then it was bath time...  

Catty is excellent in the bath and she's hilarious after it's all over!

I put the wet towel out on the deck to dry and Catty thought it was a good resting place!

But, after an adventure filled morning, it was time for a real nap in her bed