My trails are still flooded. My dogs… really need to scooter. We’re all going slowly insane together despite my attempts to provide alternative entertainment and exercise. So today, driven to the very brink, I did something I never thought I would do: I scootered in public.

Really, I always scooter in public, but it doesn’t usually feel like it; the trails I normally use are sort of privately public, neither densely populated nor highly visible to those not actually using them. So I don’t have to care if my dogs aren’t perfect or worry much about (literally or figuratively) running into anyone. Today’s outing, though, was to a decidedly public public space. We were right out there on walking and biking trails running through a well-used local park along a busy road.

It wasn’t really a spectacle, although a couple of times I thought we were going to cause a rubbernecker to have an accident. It was overcast and drizzly, and there weren’t many other people in the park. Which suits me just fine. The very well defined trail seemed to suit THEM just fine; they did surprisingly well for the amount of time we’ve been off. But, there were a few minor bloopers to be had:

I guess she wanted to be on the left BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY. (I particularly like the impatient yank at the end from dogs who usually line out and wait so nicely).

“OMG SIDE TRAIL! Not the left side? Not the right side, either? What if we just mill around aimlessly? No? Alright then.”

A rare break here from Maisy. A sassy little chipmunk lives in that exact spot. It taunted them on the way back, too, to only slightly less distracting effect.

There were some nice shiny moments, too. Like a momentarily distracted Maisy staying on course.

And it’s very hard to hear until the very end, but basically for the entire length of this clip there is an ambulance wailing its way down the highway that is on the other side of that divider across the parkway (on the left). And my wonderful dogs did not react or care in the slightest.

So, you know. We lived. I know it’s a doable alternative, at least on a drizzly weekday morning. And so we might just survive until the floodwaters recede.