How does one go from writing a blog about an international mega-trip to writing about a Sunday afternoon outing? Maybe in a similar way as one would go from taking her first international mega-trip to settling into regular adulting. . . just simply by doing it and not over-thinking. It has been a bit of a challenge for me to come back from a trip to Chad and Austria, and settle back into a routine of life around the house in New Mexico.
Kelly says there is a reason that he has gotten into the habit of tying flies and building guns and working on other projects indoors during the winter. It is not the cold. It is mud. Lots and lots of mud. It snows and melts and does not soak well into the frozen ground. The resulting mud makes outings difficult, especially with dogs.
Because of the frequent snowfalls since we got back, we have done less adventuring. I have found an outlet for my restlessness in housework. It may not be necessary to do spring cleaning when spring finally arrives, because I will have done it all in the winter when getting out was not as easy.
Sunday afternoon, Kelly pulled me from a frenzied cleaning of the items on high shelves and sweeping cobwebs from vaulted ceilings (after he helped me and cleared the highest spots). He said he had a new area he wanted to explore. I love his internet research! It leads him to discover the most amazing spots to explore!
This spot was a lovely, populous series of trails very near large homes, and there was no mud with which to contend. The trails had kitchy names like Eliza’s ridge and Shepherd’s trail. There were a dozen or more cars in the parking area at the trailhead, but there were enough trails that we hoped people would be pretty spread out. We were thrilled to see that dogs could be either on leash or responsive to voice commands.
Elfie went pretty much straight into some nasty cockleburs (Xanthium strumarium). She is in a lovely Collie full coat right now, so the cockleburs entangled deeply and quickly. After we got the awful seedpods removed from the feathers on her legs and behind her ears, we were off. The trail was up and over a saddle, a bit steep, but the weather was lovely. There were some inviting rock outcroppings that called out to be scrambled. Kelly found a lovely hole in the top of one of the outcroppings. I settled into the hole quickly but could not convince any of the dogs to join me.
Everyone we met along the trail was very patient and kind and friendly, even when our dogs got on the trail in front of bicyclists. It was a refreshing surprise to have people ok with dogs enjoying the outing. It is, sadly, the exception rather than the norm.
We made it to the top of a ridge, and hiked along it for a while, but it was taking us farther from the truck, and we were ready to wrap up the mini-adventure, so we trekked down the ridge and across back to the parking area. We were back to the truck and headed home after a two-hour hike on a lovely sunny winter Sunday afternoon. It filled us up to face a week of mundane and necessary tasks. Yes, it is true that vacationing is much easier than adulting, but there is joy in the everyday if you look for it, if you wake expectant, hoping to see a new thing.
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