men in camo

Yesterday Tiika and I went to Crazy Canyon for a hike in the forest. When we arrived I heard a lot of whooping and hollering from the woods above the parking lot. At first I thought, "Those folfers are having one heck of a time today!" but then realized the noise wasn't coming from the direction of the folf course. I remembered the last time we were up there we ran into some cross country runners training so I thought perhaps they were psyching up for a meet. Either way, I shrugged my shoulders and we were off.

I was huffing and puffing up the hill and not really noticing anything too far off the trail until all of a sudden I realized Tiika had stopped and was watching some movement in the woods to the right of us. I looked more closely and listened, it was a crew of men in camo running a training exercise, complete with guns. Aha, we'd found our whooping and hollering friends. It freaked me out a just a bit to see them wandering about with those rifles. Some of them noticed us passing by but didn't say anything. I had to call Tiika away because she looked about ready to launch at them or at least let loose with one of her hound dog howls.

We continued on the trail until Tiika paused again to sniff at something on the ground. It was a camo man lying on the ground behind some bushes. I jumped. He said something to me about hiding or a secret. I'm not really sure and I wasn't going to ask him to repeat himself. I whistled for Tiika and kept on walking without looking at her, hoping she hadn't just given him and his location away to his buddies walking the forest above looking for him. She trotted toward me and he commented, "Good looking dog." I said thanks and we kept on moving.

After about 40 minutes, we were on the last stretch of our hike and heading down to the parking lot. I heard the same whooping and hollering coming from below as when we arrived. It was the camo men gathering to head out. As we arrived at the end of the trail, I saw the last guy get in a truck and then a government van pull away. I'm not sure if it was ROTC or National Guard or Army but it was official, whatever they were doing up there.

So, what did you do last night?