snowshoeing the monday walk....

monday walk...always such a grand time. at the end of the walk blossoms doodle friends were coming off the trail. luke and emma. they are always so excited to see blossom. would love to have them do the loop with us. thier owner, jill, was off for a ski. she got there about a half hour after we did. we were out there for 2 hours. the weather was in the 20's...it was perfect and spectacularly beautiful. doesn't get much better for scenery. we started on the big loop, took the add on loop back over the mushing trails, then back to main big loop and over to the side trails that take you across the open area with the ponds...i was the only one on snowshoes so i broke trail for everyone. i love snowshoe days.

i wore my paisley snow pants. i call them sandra's pants cause she convinced me to buy the sale item. they are a bit bright for me, but i'm getting used to them. sandra skipped today as she was sick and tanya sadly skipped today as maddie was sick. next week is a holiday so we'll see who shows up for that one. i love the unpredictability of the monday walk. i haven't been alone on it since september or early october i think.

i think the scenery speaks for itself...pictures still don't do it justice.

as you can see it was a beautiful day out there. amazingly beautiful. we did some off loops so that i could play on my snowshoes. it's always better to break trail in the snowshoes i think. more fun, more of a work out. no hip pain with all that...well maybe one second there was a catch of pain. swimming tonight for 25 laps. i skipped the jacuzzi which was a mistake i think. got some hip pain after that swim. appointment tomorrow so see if they have anything to say.

above is the mushing trail. no fresh tracks there except a walker. below gail goes off to retrieve the toy as the dogs wait on the trail. us human sorts are good retrievers on occasion.

i love it back by the mushing trails as there are lots of those spindley pine trees that look cool covered in fresh snow.

the humans again outnumbered the dogs today. it was just 4 people (me, gail, lena and nellie). nellie's first time out. i think she had a good time...it was too pretty not to. just 3 dogs. rio was following me very close as usual. which is normally fine, but when i am on the snowshoes it can be a bother. when 120# stomps on the back of your snow shoe you stop. i think her foot went through the hole in the snowshoe at one point and i flew forward hard. as i flopped to the ground the retractable leash i held in my hand whipped up and the metal flew back and really knocked me on the bridge of my nose. i felt that one. rio felt the twisting too. she limped for a few minutes and worried me, but she is seeming pretty good tonight. i think we will all go a bit easy tomorrow. you can see the blood on my nose in the next picture...

below is a picture very early in the walk so no blood. i'm followed by lena, gail and then nellie.

i'm sleepy so i'm headed to bed. may watch a movie. my netflix is cinderella man and i've never seen that one. so 4 miles of snowshoeing and 25 laps in the pool. the swim teacher dude out there tonight said the pool was measured in yards? anyway...i think the gist of it was that 35 laps would be about a mile.