The Long Way Wrong Way Long Way to get to the River.

I am a pretty good person to walk with. I will walk as far as you want to, short walk, long walk, it's all good with me. My dogs automatically hop up on stumps for photoshoots, and will jump into the river whenever possible. Me and the dogs like to walk quiet and stealthy, maintain a low profile in the trees. Gustavo and Otterpop lead the way, and me and Ruby follow behind. We all make sure we can alway see each other, and everyone whose name is Gustavo has now learned to stay on our path and not take off after critters.

My biggest problem of walking is that I like to take different paths, and I don't use a map.

The map is in HERE. I am tapping my noggin. And usually, I can figure out where we are going.

We're not talking deep, dark wilderness adventure here. I am hiking on various lands accessible to roads and state parks. I might not say exactly which ones, so that they stay empty, because we like to walk without running into others. Also I might not officially be welcome on all of them. But if one were to get lost, theoretically, it wouldn't be that hard to get found again, if one were to just keep on walking.

Usually North.

Except if we're somewhere you need to go East.

Or South. And maybe on a couple of walks, you actually have to head West. But rarely. Rarely ever West.


Today was one of those Sort of Lost but Not Really walks. It involved some West. At least I brought water, poor Ruby. It was too far for her. I'm not sure at all how many miles we walked. How many miles can you walk for nearly 4 hours in the forest? 2? 5? I have no idea. The object was to get to the river, but we ended up getting there in a way I have to remember not to take again.

All my other forest walks have nice rivers. I think I need to be ok with this forest walk not ending up at the river. It never works out quite right.


Luckily I brought leashes and water, since everybody needed a lot of drinks and everybody needed leashes for the unplanned jaunt through the tourist section of the state park. Which is way down at the bottom of the hill. But had shady picnic table to take a rest at. We did get to visit some of the giant old trees. And scared some foreign tourists when a wild turkey jumped out of the bushes and chased Gustavo down the path.

That part was a little sad. Yes. The turkey was chasing him. He's ok now. Maybe just embarrassed. The tourists were freaked out. It was one mean ass turkey.

Next time, we just don't go to the river.