Last night, after I posted, was pretty uneventful. Mom and Dad were eating, and I wanted to play Tug. Tug, for the record, is pretty much my favorite game. I brought her my sheepy. She continued to eat her dinner. I put my sheepy in her lap. She informed me that she couldn't touch my sheepy while she was eating because it was a "filthy thing." I kept it in her lap and I leaned. I couldn't make her understand that I desperately needed to play Tug.... RIGHT NOW! I kept it up through the whole meal, but she was firm. Maybe she was mad at me! Oh, I hope not! After dinner, Daddy played Tug with me instead. This was almost as good. He is stronger than Mom, although he doesn't play quite as long.
Anyway, today Mom and I had a wonderful adventure. It was over 60 degrees in Braintree, sunny and beautiful, and she looked at me and said, "Yogi, would you like to go to the Blue Hills?" Well, that was a silly question. I'm more than happy to go just about anywhere. I jumped off the bed, she put my leash on me and we went outside.
To my intense surprise, we didn't get out of the driveway. Instead, she led me to the car. Was that right? Were we really going for a ride in the car? I love to go for rides in the car! We always go someplace exciting, like Grandma and Grandpa's house or the vet. I love the vet. She gives me treats. Anyway, we got on the road and we got underway.
We hit a lot of traffic on the highway going there. I don't know why. I bet those people were all going somewhere wonderful too, since it was such a nice day. I was kind of hoping that everyone else was going to the Blue Hills, because I love people, but that didn't turn out to be the case. The tie-up was all related to people getting onto 24, and I'm not sure where that goes, but once we passed that it only took a few seconds to get to our exit.
First, we pulled into one entrance to the park, only to find gates pulled shut! This was very disappointing. Mom turned the car around and I thought she was going to go home, but she tried to turn right instead of left. Unfortunately there was another car, with a woman sitting at the wheel talking on her cell phone, at the stop sign. Mom waited about five minutes - for a Golden Retriever, that's forever - and then just went around her. We found another gate with a parking spot a little ways away, and we went into the park.
The park was an absolute mess. I loved it! It was all mud and slush. We slogged through a field and found a path. Mom wanted to go to the "visitor center" to buy a map. On the way, we met another dog. Her name was Thursday. She was very friendly, but I think her people were in a bit of a rush because they wouldn't let her play with me. We trudged on to the visitor center, but there was no one there to buy a map from. (Mom later found out that we should have gone to Reservation Headquarters, not to the visitor center.) At any rate, there were some free brochures there, to include some recommended hikes. Mom grabbed them and we set off on something called the Dark Hollow Trail. It was marked with green dots.
I don't even know how to tell you how wonderful this hike through the woods was! We were probably there for at least two hours. The guide listed it as "easy," but I think we must have crossed up with another green-dot trail because we went up and down all sorts of hills. The temperature was so weird. Down on the ground, because of all the slush and snow and still-thawing ground, it was cool. Up above that, it was sunny and very, very warm. It was almost like there were temperature "strata" like sedimentary rocks (which I like to carry around in my mouth.) There were so many sticks - I can't even count them all. Some of them were longer than I am! And there were some sticks that looked normal, sticking up out of the snow and all, but I just couldn't pull them out of the snow! Mom says that they were little trees, and that they'll make plenty of sticks for me later on.
There were places where it looked like water was just appearing from out of nowhere. I don't know if it was snow melt, or if this was natural, but it was just flowing down the side of a little hill into this huge basin. The basin looked like normal woods, but it had a huge amount of water in it like a swamp. Maybe someone overturned their water bowl. I do that sometimes, when I get excited. It would have to be a big water bowl, though! I drank some of the water.
Other animals had been there too! I stopped and sniffed at almost every tree and every rock that stuck up out of the ground. At one place, we saw a cave up the hill, and I wanted to go and look at it but Mom wasn't so keen on that. It wasn't a big cave - I bet I could have fit in it no problem! And there were other signs of other animals. I didn't see any horses, but they sure left me plenty of treats! Mom wasn't so keen on me having those treats either. We went up another tall, tall hill. When we tried to come back down, the path was very muddy and she slipped and fell. She was all dirty! I rolled in some mud too, so that we would smell the same.
Toward the end of our walk, we met three more friends: Luna, a six-month-old Huskie that could almost make me forget about the Yankee Stadium guard dog (and I think she liked me too!), Hopi, another Golden Retriever, and Harley, who is staying with Luna and Hopi while her parents are away. We played and played, and ran around, and leaned on each other's people. It was a great time.
Eventually, we came to the end of the trail. That's where we found two-leg kids to play with! I met two young girls, both very pretty, who were enjoying the weather and collecting pine boughs. I also met a very sweet little boy, a toddler. He has a yellow lab at home (I wonder where she was?) but seemed a little intimidated by me. His dad was very nice, though, and gave me lots of pats and scritches. We met a friendly cocker spaniel too, who really wanted to play, but her people didn't want her to play so we kept going. We got back into the car, which is now a very muddy car, and went home.
I was so tired that I took a nap. When I woke up, it was dark out. I went into the kitchen and looked out the back window when I saw him - the Ghost Dog. I see him just about every night. He comes and he looks in the window. I bark at him, but he doesn't get scared away - he just barks right back. I try to hide, but sometimes Mom makes me go outside and face him. I think she's just as scared of him as I am! Whenever I go outside to chase him away, he's gone. One of these day, we'll actually meet up.....
No comments:
Post a Comment