Floyd, Virginia, and the AT

We had a great visit with our dear friends the McClures in Floyd, Va. They have a retreat center on 35 acres near the Blue Ridge Parkway. We stayed up late, slept in, and relaxed - a perfect vacation. On the 4th of July we all packed up and drove to Philpott Lake, where we had a picnic and swam. No fireworks on the 4th but the night before Steve and I experienced small town fireworks at the local high school complete with homemade ice cream and baked goods for sale.

The camera was hit or miss but Steve did get a picture of me teaching Samson to swim...he is not a natural but we're trying.

Tuesday afternoon we loaded up and headed north of Roanoke, Virginia, to the trailhead of Dragon's Tooth. Its a 2.5 mile hike up and the last part is on the Appalachian Trail. The summit is a rock formation with amazing views of the Blue Ridge Mountains. I wish the camera worked :( The last leg of the hike is basically on your hands and feet up rocks. We had to do a relay with the dog - Steve would climb up, I would pass him Samson, and so forth. Our little 14lb puppy was a natural hiker...he loved all the new smells, bugs, jumping up the smaller rocks and the dirt - oh how he loved the dirt! Several times during the hike our little black dog was very brown from dust. We spent the night on the top and cooked ramen over our little camp stove. We're looking forward to our next camping trip :)

Again, cooperating for only one picture then dying again.

My little munchkin enjoying the shade at the winery :)