Mush, Baby

It’s become a tradition to take the Mush Puppies, as we say in Minnesota, “up north” in the spring and fall for a mushing vacation. Usually we scooter, although last spring we were fortunate enough to be skijoring at the end of April. I can’t in good conscience call this spring’s trip a mushing vacation, though, because it rained overnight nearly every night. This made the ground really too soft to scooter, and we only got one short run in.

The rest of the time, we went hiking. Once to twice a day, almost every day, we went for a hike which I am choosing to consider cross training considering all the up and down hills we did. Depending on how far out into the middle of nowhere and away from roads we went, sometimes cani-hiking…

…and sometimes off leash. This was the Magnetic Rock Trail, on the one day it was sunny most of the day.

This was the one day it was sunny all day long.

This is the Centennial Trail, which we completed although I hadn’t initially intended to. This day, like most days, it was overcast although it didn’t generally actually rain during the day.

As usual, the dogs thought posing was dumb.

Although all that hiking was great exercise for all of us, and resulted in a lot of power naps.

All in all it was a good time. We hiked miles of trails and viewed lots of beautiful views together. We did what we wanted when we wanted, and I watched a lot of movies, caught up on some podcasts, did quite a bit of knitting. All in all a restful, rejuvenating time together with my Mush Puppies and I’m going to make more of an effort this year to work more hiking in between scooter runs, because these dogs really are great hiking partners.

Sure, we love mushing. But sometimes we just hang out in the backyard on a gorgeous spring day and I take a bunch of pictures of them.

There was enough of a break between being able to ski and the trails icing out that Squash lost some conditioning and got more pace-y again, so he’s been back on the underwater treadmill for several weeks. Nice to see him getting more trotty as he gets back into shape.

I guess he really likes to trot now?

Chewing sticks is serious business?

Or perhaps not.

I kept getting visitors to my chair.

Except Maisy only almost-visited because… boys are icky?

Pip went inside and the youngsters got a little crazy.

They’re best friends. No, really.

I love this one because it’s so incongruous how calm she is and how maniacal he is.

They really are besties, though.

Ouch, my heart.

The end! Next stop, more mushing!

After Pip and I scouted out the new trail earlier this week, we got some rain and snow. The snow melted right away, and although I wasn’t sure what kind of shape the trail was going to be in from all that precipitation I decided to go anyway. And I’m kind of in love.

For starters, here is how the scooter rides in the car. I just loosen and fold the handlebars down, then pop them up and tighten them before going for a run. Honestly, I pretty much just leave it there all summer since my car is not very passenger friendly anyway.

It was a little bit muddy in some stretches, but not too bad. Just enough to mean I had to kick and run the scooter more than usual and make them work a little harder, but not enough to make it impossible or frustrating for them. When it is dried out, it will be perfection.

As per usual for our weekday-morning forays, there was no one else in sight so we were free to play with the GoPro. (Yea, I forgot to throw my pads in the car, but at least I had my helmet.)

My shoes got a little muddy.

This was a lovely spot to stop for a water/grazing break.

And then back to the car!

I have a few videos to trim up and I will post them later. All in all, this was a good day… we were having so much fun that we went farther than I realized, and now everyone is fast asleep (just another reason to love this sport!).

Friday, April 18th: 2.8 miles (cumulative 7.3 miles)