A brief escape

I just got back from my summer Vermont trip. Aside from the usual activities, we headed up to Mt. Mansfield, which is the tallest peak in Vermont. There's a toll road that takes you most of the way. We had a full load and my car wasn't particularly happy with the all uphill and windy climb. But we made it and it was worth it. The weather wasn't great with clouds pouring over the ridge. This made a great howl by the tv towers and the visitor shack on top. We didn't make it all the way to top, but that's fine. The experience was well worth it.

Here's the view from one-third of the way up the toll road.

Here's the view at the highest spot we hiked to. At some points the rolling clouds got so intense the only thing would could see if the spot we were standing on.

Most nights I headed out around dusk to check out the wildlife. I headed down the driveway and spotted something along the edge. At first I thought it was a tree stump. Then I shockingly thought it was a coyote. Then this object jumped up and ran full speed at me. Luckily it didn't bite and was just a shepard mix. We walked to the end of the driveway where I was expecting to find her owner. Nope. Not a soul in sight. I checked the tags and it gave her name "Kayla" and some phone numbers. Unfortunately I had no phone on me. I directed Kayla to go home and followed her. We went up the dead end. The first house had no lights on and no cars in the driveway so we kept going. We finally made it the very large house at the end. Lights were on and I could see a dog bowl on the steps. These were good signs that she had made it home. I rang the doorbell and a woman answered. I asked if that was her dog. Nope Kayla was not home. I asked the woman if I could use her phone to call the numbers. Thankfully someone answered and the dog was from another nearby dead end. The owners said they would come by. Many minutes passed and no sign. So we called again and eventually they showed up. Kayla was overjoyed. Turns out she had been given a bath and was upset about that and took off. They said she would've eventually make it back home but there was no way I'd let her be outside alone considering darkness was imminent and there's coyotes and bears out. The owners had this awesome old fashioned jeep or something like that and we all hopped in. But the headlights were tempermental so I lit the way with my sad flashlight.