September 06, 2011
Walked For 11 Miles!
My peeps are generally well adjusted and rational, but this holiday weekend, they took leave of their senses and decided to go for a walk.
Normally, we all go for a walk together - a couple miles - , sometimes they take me to places like "Drinking Horse Mountain", or The "M", which is the Montana State University M on the side of the Mt. Baldy in Bozeman. Or, mom just takes me to the dog park where I can run around 15 acres or so and play.
But "Labor Day", they decided that we were going to go and see the waterfalls in Hylite Canyon. Being a Beardie, I am also game for a good walk, or a climb over some rocks, or even herding pugs in a dog park. So I am always the first one to the truck.
This time though, I didn't know what was going to happen, I heard the words "Truck", "walk" and my all time favorite - "GO".
And off we went. We headed up to Hylite Canyon, which is a wooded canyon that runs down the Gallatin National Forest. The reservoir at the top provides all the drinking water to the Bozeman, MT area. I have been there several times, and I like the way it always smells like wet dogs. I see a lot of those retreiver fellows and they always seem to be muddy and messy. Oh to be a retriever.
Today, I heard we were going to the falls. I like the falls, I think I should always stand in the middle of a stream and let water fall into my mouth. Sometimes when I am tired of walking, I just lay down in the cool mountain stream and smile happily. 
My peeps were talking about a lake. I dont remember seeing a lake there, but if they wanted to go, then so did I. Not that I had any choice in the matter.
I heard them say that if we can walk two or three miles, then we can walk five or six to get to the lake. They forgot, that was one way.
So off we trekked to see the mountain lake. And we walked, and we climbed, and we panted, and we stopped and rested, and we walked some more. We saw 11 waterfalls, five golden retrievers, one Saint Bernard, 15 black labs, one beagle doxie mix, and several running college students. Oh, and a pair of men's briefs hung on a log. Hmmm.
Then we crawled over the top of the meadow and saw the mountain lake. Wow, lots of water! No one would let me go and play in it. My peeps took pictures and some of them are of me. 
We turned around there and came back down. I drank out of every stream I crossed and even laid down in a couple. I collected lots of black mud and sticks in my feet. I had pine needles in my tail and my face looked like I had been eating chocolate cake. I was happy! They ran out of water, I had all the water I wanted.
We all got tired coming back down, my mom had clown feet and kept tripping over herself. Then I had to wait for her, she is slow.
We finally got back to our truck and they said they were getting chicken for supper. We were gone over seven hours! All I heard was "chicken". Mmmm, I like "chicken".
They stopped and got chicken in a bag, I could smell it, it was so yummy smelling.
Then they stopped at the car wash and threw me in the dog wash! They cleaned all the mud and sticks that I had been collecting. I was saving them for later. Now I am wet, clean, and still don't have any chicken.
In the end, they had a great hike, I saw some cool dogs, and got to get as muddy as I wanted. Mom did give me some chicken. I like chicken!
Me and Dad at one of the mountain meadows.
This is what the canyon looks like from almost the top of the mountain. If someone had wanted to walk two more miles, Dad would have had us at the top of Hylite Mountain.
Posted in Blu Musings by bluemorningexpressions on September 06, 2011 at 1:07pm | Add comment
