We got in the general direction and were looking for a street name but all the signs had numbers. So Mike just kept going in the direction he thought we should be headed. After making a few turns and traveling on we came across the correct street. The trailhead was to be on this road on the left.
It seemed like we were getting to national forest land as we were pretty far out in the boonies but there were houses along the road. And these weren’t just your normal houses. These were huge horse properties with houses like we’ve never seen before – and we’ve seen some pretty nice houses. To give you an idea how fancy these places were, the horse barns were larger and fancier than most fancy houses we see. These properties were HUGE and the barns and houses were amazing. Each property also had a tennis court, full size basket ball courts, indoor swimming pools, extremely large ponds (or small lakes – not sure which), guest houses, huge fancy gated entrances, etc. They were all nestled down in the valley between mountains on each side. And there wasn’t just one or two of these properties. There were probably 10 – 15. Mike and I kept saying that one of these properties would be the perfect agility site. Who needs all those horses anyway!
Anyway, we continued on down the road when suddenly it became a narrow one lane dirt road. And there was a huge sign that said you must stay on the road for the next two miles – no trespassing, no hunting, etc. And I guess they were serious about it as there was a sign on each side of the road every 25 yards for the next 2.9 miles. This road was extremely bumpy and while Mike tried really hard to go as smoothly as he could, we were bouncing all over the place. Boogie's crate even tipped all the way on to its side. Good thing he’s right next to me so I could get him upright immediately. I held the crate from then on but the little guy didn’t seem to care one bit that he was being tossed around like a tennis shoe in a dryer.
Even though it was bumpy and we were going slow, we were making a little bit of progress. But when we hit the two mile mark and there were still all these signs we were wondering if we were ever going to get anywhere. The one thing we new for sure – we were going to be the only ones there!
Just when we thought the road couldn’t possibly get any worse there is suddenly a creek running across the road. And it was fairly big. We got out but couldn’t tell how deep it was. So Mike got a large tree branch and poked it out in the middle of the stream to see if he thought we could make it. His exact words were: “I think we might be able to make it as long as it doesn’t rain while we’re up here.” So even though it was a bit scary we forged ahead and did just make it across.
At mile 2.9 we finally found a trailhead – if you can call it that. It was just a place where there was room for one car to pull off the side of the road and park. And that is just what we did.
We didn’t even pretend to put leashes on the dogs (except Slugger) we just let them loose straight out of the car. It was a fairly nice day and the sun was out except for a few moments here and there when a cloud would go by.
The view from the beginning of the trail and most of the way along was just beautiful. We could see hills (they probably call them mountains) off in the distance
and the colors of the leaves were just stunning.
There was also a little creek that ran along side the road/trail.
Just beyond the stream there was a wall of rocks that went straight up and down - another reason we felt safe with the dogs off leash.
The dogs had fun romping in the creek and running here and there. Then suddenly Mike noticed something very large and very dead in the stream. We called all the dogs out of the creek before they noticed it. We have no idea what it was (and I didn’t take a picture as it was just too gross) but it wasn’t a pretty sight.
Shortly thereafter we saw some huge footprints in the dirt. We didn’t know what they were but we knew we didn’t want to meet whatever made those huge prints. The dogs of course were oblivious to any of this and were having a great time romping up and down the hills and into and out of the stream. This picture isn't the best quality but I just had to include it as I thought Wazzu and Boogie were just so cute.
Since the hike was uphill sometimes, I would lag way behind. Boogie didn't want to leave me behind so we he always stop near the top of the hill and sit and wait for me. What a good little boy.
Well, he was mostly a good boy. Boogie has a horrible habit of eating anything he finds on the ground. Unfortunately, out in the wilderness there is nasty stuff - horse poo, cow pies, and old dead squished mice. No matter how many times I'd catch him and tell him to leave it he would still try to eat stuff. I'd open his jaws and shake his head to get the stuff to fall out but somehow he could keep the stuff in his mouth and hide it from me. So I'd have to reach in and try to get the stuff out. I screamed pretty loud when I got a mouse out of his mouth! After that he was on his own - he just had to hope he didn't get sick from all the yucky stuff he was eating!
About 45 minutes into the hike, I glanced up once to see some beautiful cloud formations.
I had barely snapped the picture when the sky suddenly turned dark and it got extremely windy.
Mike said we needed to high tail it down as a big storm was coming. He barely got the words out of his mouth when we heard thunder. We didn’t want to get stuck up here in a storm as the chance of anyone knowing we were missing or finding us were slim to none.
The wind was so strong it was hard to walk – for us people anyway. Boogie loved the wind in his fur. It made him really frisky and he started zooming around and jumping on the other dogs. He was having a blast.
Every once in a while a really strong gust would come up and I'd have to grab my hat to keep it from blowing away. Mike's reactions weren't quite so quick and his hat blew off and was taken down a very steep hill - way too steep for people to go down at all. But this was one of Mike's favorite hats and he didn't want to leave without it so he sent Sparkie down to get it. She thought he was telling her there must be some critter down there and she was looking and looking but didn't even pretend to go for the hat. We tried throwing rocks onto the hat but she still wasn't understanding. Just as we had given up and started to continue down the trail, Sparkie came up over the edge the hill with Mike's hat in her mouth. What a good girl!
Wazzu is extremely perceptive and she knew that we were concerned. The dogs kept wanting to play and we were just anxious to get down the mountain as fast as we could. Our main concern was getting the car across the creek before it rose so high that we’d be stuck. Mike figures it wouldn’t take more than two or three minutes of hard rain to make it impassable.
I was trying to make it down the hill and keep an eye on Boogie who was darting around like a crazy dog. But the wind was so strong I wasn’t making much forward progress and the leaves and dirt were blowing around so much that it was very difficult to see.
I tried to get a picture of the wind but I don’t think you can see that. You may be able to see that the sky was getting very dark compared to the way up.
Then we see lightening and hear more thunder. Fortunately we were pretty close to the car by now. We packed everyone into the car as fast as we possibly could. We had no sooner started the car when the sky opened up and the rain came pouring down. It wasn’t making little drops on the windshield. It was making huge splotches about the size around of a baseball. Slugger sits in the front and he was petrified. He wanted to get in the back so badly but it was already crowded back there. So Mike had to try to drive with one hand and try to calm Slugger with the other hand.
Our mission now was to get down the road as fast as we could (even though it was super bumpy) and get across that creek. Mike was right, it didn’t take many minutes for that creek to rise quite a bit. It had only been raining a couple minutes before we got there and it had risen quite a bit. We’re sure than if we’d been just one minute later we wouldn’t have made it – we barely made it as it was.
Now all we had to do was make it the last couple miles on the now muddy road and hope we didn’t get stuck. We slid around a few times but we made it back to firm pavement. Phew. We were thinking that it is a really good thing that we always keep the car stocked with bottled water and granola bars.
We were all happy to have a really nice warm dinner, in our nice warm RV. Now the only thing left was to determine if Mike was going to get to watch the baseball playoff game or if I was going to get to watch Monday Night Football. Being the fabulous wife that I am, we watched baseball. Good thing I guess as the game was exciting and even went into extra innings (although it ended on a bad call by the ump). It’s times like that when you’re glad you don’t really care who wins.
Debbie
10/1/07
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