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A Mid-Winter Hike at Sam's Point and an Outdoor Winter Picnic at Gaby's Cafe in Ellenville, NY


The weekend of February 12, 2022 was originally supposed to be a friend filled ski weekend, yet with the weather forecasting temps close to 60 degrees we all decided to rethink our plans and change things up to be a friend/dog filled hiking weekend.


We settled on a fun hike/walk at Minnewaska State Park - Sam's Point Preserve . It was a perfect central location for a group of our friends and it is quite dog friendly!


6 humans and 4 dogs pilled into the vehicle and left from our house. We were meeting a couple other friends with their dogs at the park.

Out of our 4 doggos ( 2 stayed with Dad at his house for this adventure) Bea, is the only one prone to major car sickness! All the boys ride great! Plus, out of the 4 pups we had with us for this trip, 2 get motion sickness. Ohhhhhh yeah....we had barf bags on the ready! And Jenneka had to keep Bea from watching every tree that passed…

Guys by God's grace everyone....humans and canine, kept all bodily functions within their bodies...okay maybe not in the gaseous department.

As we unloaded the clown car, Mattie and his dog Dixie arrived and then Esther pulled in with her pup Mo. Perfect timing!

Fam...it was doggy daycare at its finest!

The day was spectacular....

Blue skies picked up the white and grey hues of the melting snowy landscape creating some pretty stunning views!

The company was bar none! Thanks Patrina for capturing the above pic…all 3 of us sibs were in it🙌…haha


After completing the trail and snapping a few more fun pics, we were all pretty hungry! We had assumed we would only be able to order food and tailgate, but the original sushi spot we were thinking of was really out of the way from our friends' route home. Soooo, we decided to drive into town, found a parking lot and let Jared and Anthony scope out our options while we waited in the cars with the pups.

They returned, to astoundingly inform us that one of the restaurants we were scoping out " Gaby's Cafe" would be willing to seat all 8 of us! And our 6 dogs! We all questioned...."fellas, you did tell them these aren't lap dogs?!" Really only 2 of the pups could actually pass as lap dogs....the others not so much!

Jared had gone back once more to make sure it would be okay...sure enough 10 minutes later they had a long table set out on their front patio with a heater on full blast!

We strode across the street in anticipation!