Dog Day Morning

After a horrific weather day Saturday, a day that we still don't know the entire scope of impacts from, Sunday dawned a beautiful spring morning - so often the case after such bad weather.  So Tessie and I decided to get out for a walk on the Hawksbill Greenway in Luray - me with the hopes of finding a spot where I might be able to get her off leash without inconveniencing everybody else out for a walk on such a fine day.

We found a spot on the north end, a mown area that has been carved out of an old hay field, about a quarter mile there that stretches along the creek.  I let her off leash and we walked back and forth along it a couple of times, then we took a short walk farther along towards town. 

After all the rain, the creek was way up - you could see that all along 340 and you could see the signs that the water had been even higher over night.  I hope there is no lasting damage to the Greenway's new section, up by the swimming hole - that's where it looks like the stream got out of its banks.  Maybe some of the little trees got knocked over, but hopefully not much more than that.

Here are a couple of shots of the stream in the area where we took our walk, a couple of the rapids reaching category two level, I think, for paddlers - although this stream is probably too constrained for any of that sport.  The one spot under the highway overpass is definitely something you wouldn't want to take lightly in your kayak...

From the blue skies you can see what a beautiful day we had. 

The first photo above shows the pup finally feeling it when we got back to the stretch of old pasture.  She figured out she could run here, and she put in a good leg stretcher for a couple of laps.  Later on, after we got back to the house, I gave her a brushing to check for ticks and then put her sporting new safety bandana on while we sat on the brick terrace.

One more encounter...the cows were out in the pasture that the Greenway surrounds.  As we approached the fence there, the pup was interested in them, but not too much.  We didn't get much closer than this before she decided she didn't need to check them out better.

Now the encounter with cows reminded me of a walk Mary and I took with Gracie back in 1995, when we just got her.  On Q Street NW in the District, there is an old trolley car bridge over the Rock Creek Parkway that has four large statues of bison on it.  As we passed through the shadow of one of the statues, Gracie pause to look up and saw the big bison.  A bark fest ensued - she didn't know what to make of it.

No barking from Tessie on Sunday, but she was a happy tired little doggie on the drive back home.