Adventures in Camping

Adventures in Camping

Hi everyone! I'm Nicole of Employed Panache, and I am today's guest blogger while Lauren makes her away across the country with her adorable pup, Tripp. I am really excited to write this post because my blog is focused more on what I wear to work, and so I normally don't get to share my life outside of the 9-5 with my readers.

Lauren asked all the guest bloggers to share an adventure with our own dogs, and so fresh off the holiday weekend, here is my latest camping adventure with my Boston Terrier, Donna!

Over Labor Day weekend, Donna, my husband, 4 friends, and I drove down to Assateague Island in Maryland to camp for a few days. Above is Donna on our way down - always excited to see where we're going :) We took our time driving down from New Jersey, so the sun was setting by the time we set up camp. The next morning, I took this photo of our "home" for the next few days. My friend has a trailer but my husband and I decided to sleep in our tent to enjoy the fresh air. Yes, it's cozy but it fits 2 adults and 1 Boston Terrier perfectly!

For those of you who have not heard of Assateague Island, it runs down the coast of Maryland and Virginia, and it is home to over 300 wild ponies!!

It is pretty amazing to "live" among these animals... they are used to people so they come right into your campsite! Visitors must be vigilant and not leave out food or let fresh water run from the spigots because this will attract the ponies and even cause them to act territorial. Essentially, the park rangers advise that you watch the ponies from a safe distance so that everyone stays safe. Donna is great because she just ignores the ponies - no herding instinct in this dog!

We camped on the bay side of the island this year, instead of the beach side. In my opinion, the views were more beautiful. Plus, the ponies are fenced off from the ocean side camping spots, so you don't get the same interaction. I actually woke up one morning to a herd grazing outside our tent!

The first day, we walked to the bay swimming spot, which had a little bit of sand to lay out on. You can't really swim here because the water is really shallow, but it's fun for dogs to play in. Unfortunately, there were way too many people and ponies around to allow Donna off her leash, so she looked pretty bored (and sandy) after awhile:

As you probably saw from the picture above, my style while camping is very relaxed but still fun! (If you hop over to my blog, you'll see that I try to make all my outfits fun whenever possible, even at work :) But the key while camping is bring lots of layers... during the day, it could be really hot, but at night the ocean winds cool the island down fast. Here I'm soaking in the sunset right before we cooked dinner, and it was already a lot cooler than earlier that day:

Speaking of sunset, the colors were amazing, even without a direct view of the sun setting!

The next day, my husband and I felt bad that Donna couldn't run around much the day before, so we let her off leash right behind our campsite. This is a much muddier area of the bay, and while Donna loves to roll in anything yucky, we kept her focus with a good game of fetch.

This was a perfect way to tire her out so that she slept in the trailer while we hung out at the ocean side that afternoon. So in case you were wondering, I was wearing a tunic/cover-up above... no, I didn't have shorts on but I did have a bathing suit on ;) And since I have short hair, I love to tame it with a scarf or bandanna while at the beach.

So in the essence of time and with an already picture heavy post, I'll leave you with this last picture of Donna, tuckered out but happy at the end of our last day. I could go on forever about all the details of my camping adventure... but instead I encourage you to have one of your own :)