Before we headed home we made one last stop to fill up at the CHAR-PIT.
At first, Luce was excited since he might have remembered the last time he was here and got to hang with his brother Max and friend Baron:
But then we told him that Max was not here and he knew he would not get a burger, so he turned away in disgust:
We made an excursion to South Lake Tahoe to check out a dog friendly beach there. It is quite a long beach with sand that extends pretty far out into the lake. We played fetch the stick for a little while but the wind was blowing pretty hard from the south which eventually blew the stick too far out for Luce’s comfort so we just watched it float away.
Here you can see that the wind turned his tail into a windsock.
Just before we left a few gusts blew sand across the beach and we got sandblasted. After that, pretty much everyone there bailed out.
Stacey shot some video of the beach:
We took Luce to Starbucks at Squaw Valley a few mornings while we were there. We did not see any signs that dogs were not allowed so we just acted like it was perfectly normal. Nobody seemed to mind and Luce was on his best behavior.
Luce: Thanks for scratching my head all this time, it’s really nice in here.
Luce: Hey, why did you stop scratching?
Luce: Oh, OK, you wanted a kiss.
We found a, sort of, dog friendly beach on the north shore of Lake Tahoe. The reason I say sort of is because it was more of a small rocky opening to the lake and not really a beach. It was really windy that afternoon so we did not stay very long.
As you can see, the wind was so strong it looked more like the ocean with actual waves rolling in. Here is a short video so you can see for yourself
We took a little hike in the mountains above Squaw Valley. We got Luce a set of Ruffwear Grip Trex boots this time after he got some sores on his paws the last time we were in Tahoe. It took a little getting used to back home but we think he noticed that he gripped the rocks better and could walk on anything.
Here is where we turned around, right before Luce decided to take a dirt bath:
Here, we met up with the only other Berner we saw on the trip which was a 7 year old female. Oddly enough, they are from the Santa Cruz area not far from where we live. Unfortunately, Luce got bored while we talked which is when he decided to take a dirt bath on the ground. The dirt was as fine as flour and evenly coated him so his black fur looked grayish all over:
Here is a panoramic picture looking toward Granite Chief:
When we got back from the hike, we met up with a woman who recognized Luce as a Berner but said that she never saw one that color. There was a pond nearby and when he went in up to his chest, I rinsed him off to get most of the dirt out. The woman then said, oh, now he looks right.
We found a spot where we could get down to the river and let Luce do some exploring and see what he would do in the river which this time of year is more of a creek or stream. First, he sniffed around the river bank a little:
Then turned and headed for the water:
Here is a video:
After all the fun we had in Jul y, we thought it would be great to take our Mountain Dog back to the mountains before it gets too cold. Here Luce is waiting to go:
We got there later in the afternoon and after getting settled in, we did some exploring around Squaw Valley. Here Luce is exploring near a ski run with Granite Chief in the background.
The next morning I got a great shot of Luce sitting near the Sqauw Valley Lodge.
