I usually only walk a small portion but THIS-day I wanted to explore uncharted territory. And can I just say how much I love Google maps? I love knowing where I am on the map! (You know... the little *You Are Here* circle?)
I successfully maneuvered the transition from my regular route to the continuation of the trail. Last fall I got off on the wrong trail and had quite the mountain goat adventure.
And Harley? Oh yes! He is my partner in crime. He loves our daily walks but he especially appreciates THIS route because it is the only time I let him off the leash to explore. I talk to him like he's a little child, "You stay where you can see me or you will have to go back on the leash!" Interestingly enough, he seems to understand and only rarely goes beyond my sight.
Several times this trail merges with the power line road. But for the most part it is narrow like the photo above.
I spotted this happy little face brightening up its little corner of God's masterpiece. I'd never seen one of these before (except in my niece's photos from her nature walks).
The first hour we were in the shadow of the mountain and it was quite comfortable. Soon we emerged into the hot July sunshine.
These are my new *trainers*. I absolutely love the Go Walk by Skechers! They have saved my poor plantar fasciites feet. I credit this wonderful shoe, in various colors and styles (*if the shoe fits, buy it in every color!), with helping in the healing of this last bout (well, that, and losing 23lbs!)
We hiked 2.6 miles north-west along the trail when I could see that the trail was diverging more from the houses just below and the next opportunity to get off the trail wasn't until 970 N. Since I didn't want to make that long trek back through town we turned around and started back the way we came.
I knew there was a shortcut back down to the houses so we alternately took deer trails, and did some slipping and sliding down the dried grass hills to the street.
Oh Snap! I knew wrong! See all of the squiggly streets about a third of the way down the trail?
Yeah, let's get a close up of that! I was shooting for Spring Creek Dr instead of Spring Oaks Dr. I didn't want to go up that step climb again (You can even see how steep it is on the map!)
We (read Grammie) just didn't have the energy to take that long asphalt detour so we mountain-goated it again... only this time I slipped on my bum (hey, not so bad) and then another slip that pulled a muscle in my thigh! But, not to worry, I still had over a mile walk home so I worked that stiffness right out!
The happy news about this alternate route is that it got us back down to sprinkler water. Our water was all drunk up! Harley drank his fill and I filled my water bottle. (Note to self... take your camel-back next time!)
We were both glad to get back home and take a bath; well, Harley not-so-much. It wasn't until evening, when I saw him licking his front paw and investigated expecting to see a fox-tail I'd missed in the bath.
What I saw was...
THIS!
I've only seen this once before on a dog when we took Amber to Vasquez Rocks and she wore blisters on her little padlettes on the sandstone! Poor Harley! I felt so bad!
By bedtime these were MY stats for the day...
Harley easily did one third more with all of his up & down and back & forth. Poor boy had to take a rest day today...
but no rest for the Grammie. I had my 10,000 steps by noon.
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