Walking down to the grotto.

We walked down to the abandoned car grotto swimmin' hole after work last night. Haven't been in there much because the water was so high from the winter rains. It's pretty in there at the end of the day. Sideways light beams come in through the giant redwoods like thick sticks of mayonnaise. You can hear the river running loud, and there's a dusty forest mist that filters up around the ferns and mosses. Light enough still that there's no threat of vampires or racoons with glowy eyeballs hissing at you from behind stumps.

No one else is ever down at our swimmin' hole by the time I get off work. We have the river banks and the paths all to ourselves, and the dogs can run as crazy as they want to, up and down and through and across.

The abandonded car grotto would be a nice place to be when the world ends on Saturday, but I'll be at work instead. If that really happens, I guess we'll have no internet. So bye in advance, friends of Team Small Dog. You know where to come looking for us as civilization crumbles.

The river's still running high in there, and I shouldn't have told Otterpop she could have a swimstick. We had to climb down on a new path, down a steep rock, since some of our old paths are washed out from the winter. There's a couple spots now where someone's made some little dams out of rocks. Maybe sturdy river beavers? When I threw in the stick, the current took it fast and then there goes Otterpop. She's a pretty strong tiny swimmer, but 13lbs of Otterpop, little tail rudder held high, paddling after a stick moving downriver round the cliff corner freaks me out.

We found a calmer section, by the mud bar, and had stiller water round of swimstick. Gustavo was even swimming all the way across, without getting stuck on the far bank. He gets stuck sometimes, and forgets how to swim back to us. Him and Otterpop run and dive and swim and run and climb in a frenzy for as long as I let them. If I don't stop her in time, Otterpop goes shaky and freaky and feral until she becomes bug eyed one with the stick. I got her out in time.

Ruby nosed around for her sticks in the shallows, and dug holes in the mud. I don't think she hears everything anymore. She sticks close and I'm glad for the days she can still walk to the swimmin' hole.