The Endless Walk around the Lake
Easter Sunday, why not take a nice walk in the park? I called my friend Leslie and we went to a nearby lake. Somewhere in the recesses of my memory, I thought hiking access all the way around the lake was closed. I mentioned it, but didn’t give it too much thought. Surely, now that spring is here, they’ve got it opened up.
We took off walking. Lacey was loving it. So many smells, other dogs, people on bikes, people on rollerblades (which she wanted to chase), kids in strollers, the occasional car. The overgrowth, scrub, trees (we didn’t get close enough to the water for her to really appreciate the wetness — maybe another time, when I get a full-car plastic lining), everything was so exciting and new!
The sun was warm and the breeze was nice and Leslie and I talked a lot and Lacey had a lof of fun. About an hour and a half into the walk, seemed like we were home free about to make that last turn around the lake back to our starting point, we hit the “road closed, no access beyond this point” gate.
Geez. By this time, we were exhausted. Didn’t really want to turn around — another hour and a half to get back around!!, so we started hiking up the hill, through the scrub that Lacey had been sniffing the whole way. We got to a condo complex, climbed over the fence (of course, Lacey had to be lifted over), walked through the huge parking lot of the condo complex and finally got to an entry gate. And entry gate that we couldn’t get through or around. Could this get any more challenging?
We walked around their stone wall, over the dead mouse (surprisingly, Lacey didn’t want any part of the dead mouse) and finally found a place to climb up and over. About that time, a car drove through the gate, which, if we’d been thinking, we could have waited for a car to come through and gone through the gate at that point. Exhaustion takes it’s toll on brain activity too.
We finished up by walking up the busy streets and back into the park through the vehicle entry gate. Exhausted. Lacey’s tongue was dragging the ground, and so were mine and Les’s. Happy to get to the car.
Dinner time — raw chicken necks (for Lacey) and salads (for me and Les).
Overall, great way to spend Easter. Next time, when I hit that 1.5 mile marker, I’m turning around. Not even gonna chance that the whole road around the lake might be open.
Anna