Day 64

Barb and I had a great weekend camping at Maumee Bay State Park on the shores of Lake Erie. After arriving Friday afternoon we took our time setting up the campsite and decided to head out to get some early dinner out in Toledo before the Friday crowd showed up. We went to Tony Packos out in east Toledo, the famous coney hot dog restaurant that was made famous from the MASH series and Clinger. It was my second time there and Barb's first. The restaurant is celebrating it's 80th anniversary this year. The restaurant hasn't changed much inside since it first opened it's doors back in 1932. On all the sounding walls are displays of hot dog buns encased in plastic with signatures on them from famous celebrities. I ordered the bunker buster meal which included a foot log Hungarian sausage with coney sauce, cheese, and onions. Along with a bowl of chili and french fries. Barb got the world famous Tony Packo chili dog and a cherry danish. I was so stuffed I though Barb was going to have to carry me to the car. What a great prerace meal. I didn't know then, but that food was going to set in my gut the whole weekend! When we got back to the campsite, Barb and I set out under the trees just relaxing and enjoying the cool summer air. We then finally made it into the camper and were both asleep by 8:45 with the sun still up. We heard some near by neighbors pull up around 8:15pm to set up but we just put the air conditioner fan on to drown out any noice they were making. Around 1am in the morning, Sadie awaken me and was growling at something that was outside our trailer. Here to find out later we left her plastic container of food out and a animal had opened it up and was attempting to eat her food half way into the woods. But when I let Sadie out she chased it away and was growling at it like in an attack mode. I called her back and picked up the container and took it into the camper with me. The animal was definitely a raccoon. I was able to see the outline of its hunched back speeding away as Sadie was chasing it. We are lucky that Sadie wasn't bit by that nasty thing. The next morning Barb and I woke up at our usual 4am time and decided to build a fire. It was a nice cool morning watching the sun rise with my best friend. Once we ate breakfast we headed out for a bike ride to the beach. We did this a couple of times in the morning on the bike path all before 10am. Barb commented a few times on how much she enjoyed the bike ride throughout the actual ride. Once we got back to the camper the final time we took a nap after lunch. Waking up around 12:30 we then went back outside and just relaxed under the awning and talked for a couple of hours. By 2:30 it was then time to pick up my race packet up. I got to the HFP racing tent and I was able to chit chat with some fellow competitors while picking up my packet. That night, once again I was awaken by Sadie's growling. I left her out again and she was running around the back of the trailer. This time she was trying to get something from under the trailer. I called her back to the inside only to noticed a bad smell. She had been sprayed by a skunk. It was so gross! Now the entire camper was stinking with skunk smell. The next morning while I was at the race site, Barb was able to wash and blow dry Sadie to get all the smell off of her, but the camper was still stinking for sure. After the race we were able to pack up and beat the rain before it got to the campsite. However, a 2 1/2 hour drive home took us all most 5 hours due to the heavy thunderstorms all the way home. Hopefully the camper was thoroughly cleaned with the rain showers that the skunk smell was removed before our camping trip to West Virginia this coming Friday.