Harper leaped down the rock face with the disregard of a barely one-year-old puppy, oblivious to a world that might bring her anything but play and kibble. I scurried after her, narrowly saving the child from hanging her torso off the next ledge.
Visiting the Sunday Gulch Trail on a Friday morning, I had somehow convinced Carolyn to join me with the pups to conquer a new hike in Custer State Park, South Dakota. Have we learned yet that LBC tends towards the grand and ridiculous?
We decided that Laura Beth wouldn’t drag the gang on trails like this so often. That I’d take heed of reviews that cautioned “You should carry your dog for part of the trail” and actually take it to heart…
Harper loved it. Carolyn, maybe not so much. Bella just loved being with her mom.
We managed to hop, skip, and jump our way through roughly five miles of dusty trails in beautiful terrain.
Plus, another trail lunch! BLTs FTW.
We noticed the pups were a bit slower climbing in and out of the coach for the next few days. And over the next month, quite a bit faster in the dog parks chasing squeaky tennis balls. Inadvertent puppy strength building? Now if only the humans could get onboard that train.
Saturday found us hitting the road en route south. We detoured into…Nebraska.
Nebraska? Laura Beth, you’re headed to the Rocky Mountains. Why would you dally in Nebraska?
Iowa-raised, I’m no stranger to the flat farmland of flyover country. But even I was surprised at what we found in Nebraska. My first time in the state, in fact.
So, it turns out Nebraska was part of the Oregon Trail.
WHAT. YES. Queue the site-seeing.
Wait for it….here we go….do you remember playing Oregon Trail on the computer? It was one of my favorite games in elementary school. Of course I was always the banker because they started with the most cash and could parlay their earnings into decking out a Conestoga wagon with 6+ oxen and an array of supplies. Take that dysentery and any other calamity that might come my well-prepared way.
The irony of my profession a quarter of a century later. I do love my job – funny how the preoccupations of childhood would foreshadow how my adult persona navigated. I also happened to make a lot of mud pies, so who knows when that’s going to surface again.
For now, I think we’ve all recovered from Sunday Gulch…
Neon Green Hat 