Bays Mountain

This weekend, in celebration of the new job I started on Thursday with the VA, our good friends Bonnie and Scott came to visit. We were, as always, thrilled to see them, and although we didn't have much time to spend together, we decided to take off on Saturday to explore Bays Mountain in Kingsport.







Bays Mountain is a park that will take much more than one day to explore....among all the great hiking trails, the fishing, boating, etc. on the huge lake, and the incredible planetarium and observatory they have there, they also have a wildlife preserve.....including a wolf exhibit. You gotta check this place out:
http://www.baysmountain.com/

So, as is pretty usual these days, we took Luggie with us. It's ok to take dogs in the exhibits, as long as you stay on the paths and don't attempt to actually enter any of them.

So what do we do? You guessed it.....

We headed straight for the wolf exhibit, with Luggie in tow. The opportunity to observe Nature was just too appealing to pass up.

We weren't disappointed. Although the wolfpack was laying under the shade of the trees, all but hidden on the far side of the enclosure, it didn't take them long at all to catch Luggie's scent. The wolf enclosure is double-fenced, but even so, I must say that being stalked by a wolf is absolutely terrifying. We watched as the Alpha male caught scent....then sight....of our baby. And then, with a lethal gleam, he began the stalk. Within seconds, and without a sound, the rest of the pack had joined him, and before we knew it, the entire pack was closing in.

It was with supreme relief that we realized they were only coming to investigate our pup...not eat him. As a matter of fact, they actually became almost playful, pacing along beside us as we strolled next to the fence, watching them.

Luggie, on the other hand, was....in the way of puppies....completely oblivious to the fact that had he been in the wild, he would most likely have wound up being the main course at dinner.

Absolutely fascinating. Incredibly unnerving. Totally terrifying. Nature is an awesome thing.