Digital photography is the greatest! You can shoot all the pictures you want, get instant feedback, keep the good ones and delete the rest. But more than that, it has helped me learn what makes a good photo. Something I started doing on my recent New England trip was shoot closeups of a single tree .... sometimes pointing my lens straight up into the leaves. I loved the results. The colors in New England were so brilliant, and these photos will give you a sense of that. 
leftward leaning as well. We had several unique experiences there. This picture of Daniel was taken in the Brattleboro, VT home of Nobel prize winning author Rudyard Kipling (author of The Jungle Book, among other notable works). A family friend had rented the home for the week, and we spent two nights there. It was really fun! There is a delicatessen in Brattleboro that is to die for (albeit expensive). 
We spent a couple of days touring the quaint covered bridges in the area. (They are all pretty much alike and clustered together.) We did have a very "Vermont" kind of experience at one of them that is better told in person than in print. (Hint: public nudity is legal in Vermont.) We were fascinated by the old, old cemetaries; grave stones that date back to the early 1800's, men who gave their lives in some of our nation's early wars, and stones listing the names of numerous family members (many of them children) who died over a short period of time from various epidemics that swept through New England. The Green Mountains of Vermont are not green in October, but multiple shades of yellow, red and brilliant orange. 
It has been over 5 years since I've taken a trip without my girls, and I missed them terribly. I hired in-home care for them while I gone (fearing that Dee Dee would never survive in a kennel) and I knew it would be especially hard on her. Princess is much more resilient about things like that. I 
really thought that Dee Dee would eventually warm up to the young man who came over to feed and walk them every day, but I under-estimated either her stubborness, or her devotion to me; probably both! She refused to even go out of the house for the better part of the first week and even after two full weeks, Logan only succeeded in getting her to go out in the yard to go potty. When he tried to coax her into a walk, she'd pull out of her collar and run right back to our front door. Endearing; but frustrating.
When I got home, both of the girls were very happy to see me, but none the worse for wear. I did think that Princess was going to dislocate her hip, though, from all the wiggling! Corgis don't have tails ... but that doesn't keep them from showing their glee. It's almost like there is a hinge in the middle of their body and they wag the whole back side! I will share more about our trip in a future post. (including some Elvis stories .... yes, he got to go along since the guys picked me up in Buffalo). For today, I just want to share a few of the incredible photos from the trip. We had clear blue skies for 12-1/2 out of the 13 days we were gone and hit the fall colors right at their peak. It was amazing.
The pictures I'm sharing here were taken at Chimney Bluffs (on Lake Ontario) and Letchworth State Park (the Grand Canyon of the East) - in western New York. The scenery was breathtaking and rivaled anything I've seen out West.
It was a busy day at work and I missed lunch. So when I got home tonight, I was really hungry. I took the girls to the park for a walk, stopped at Breadsmith, and in a moment of weakness, bought four of their super-soft butter-top buns and an oatmeal craisen cookie. I was too hungry to wait for grilled burgers, so I stopped at Hornbachers Deli for some honey turkey and fresh veggies for my sandwich. A couple minutes later I pulled in my driveway and gathered my things. But wait. Where were the buns? My car gets to be kind of a pigpen (even a neat person has to have one messy place ... and mine is my car) so I did a quick search amongst the scattered bills, dog toys and water bottles .... and then I saw it. The Breadsmith bag. The empty Breadsmith bag! I glanced at Princess, who was still in the back seat, waiting to be let out of the car. Total innocence on her face. Then I looked at Dee Dee. She was licking her lips. "Dee Dee, did you eat my buns?" She took one look at me, jumped out of the car and made a dash for the house - and straight for her kennel. I followed her. "Dee Dee!! Did YOU eat my buns?" I held the torn bag about an inch from her face. She cowered in the back of the kennel - still licking her lips.
This wasn't her first offense, and I doubt it will be her last. For the record, Princess has a pretty lengthy rap sheet too. But Dee Dee never ceases to amaze me with how fast she can pull off her stunts. I was in the grocery store less than 5 minutes. She has developed quite a taste for gourmet coffee drinks too. I stopped for a cafe breve one time last year and left it in my beverage holder while I ran in the pharmacy across the street to pick up a prescription. When I came out, I snapped this picture of Dee Dee through the car window .... she had managed to get the cover off, and was slurping the HOT coffee as fast as she could. She loves hot tea, pretty much any kind of soda and beer! 
I saw a photo frame in a gift shop a couple of years ago that said, "Properly trained, man can be dog's best friend." I immediatly knew I had to buy it for Tim and Elvis because that sums up their relationship perfectly.
My girls enjoy attention from others ... and quickly warm up to them. Elvis has a handful of human friends (next door neighbor June and a few other professors in the math department at Hope, but for the most part he is only interested in one person - Tim. He has a way of making any other person (me, for instance) feel like they are nothing. This summer we were touring an old fort on the Keewenaw Peninsula in Upper Michigan and I finished before Tim did, so I went back to the car to let the dogs out. Elvis jumped out, but steadfastly refused to move out of sight of Tim's car. He minds Tim perfectly, but when I told him to 'come' , he looked at me with a 'who are you to tell me what to do?" look on his face. Another time, Tim had gone to an event at the Hope College chapel and Elvis was sitting right outside the door (off leash), patiently waiting for him. When Tim got home later that evening, there were two messages on his answering machine. The first was, "Dr. Pennings, we found your dog Elvis and we're going to bring him to your house." Tim already knew what the second message would be. "Dr. Pennings, Elvis refuses to go with us. He is sitting by the chapel door." 
