Charlie watching squirrels while Jake lounges.
I have an unspoken rule about holiday weekends: stay home.
I hate crowds. I don't like taking Charlie places where there will be other dogs aggravating her reactivity issues. I don't like having to keep the dogs on-leash when they should be running free (only in safe places and only when I'm sure we won't be bothering anyone else).
That is why we seek wilderness trails or places during "off peak hours" so we can have our solitude and freedom. Holiday weekends prevent this because EVERYONE is out trying to enjoy a single weekend of outdoor time.
But we had such a lazy day yesterday... lounging on the porch, watching squirrels and reading books. And I felt like I owed it to the dogs to have an adventure today.
Unfortunately it totally backfired. We headed north about an hour drive to the Turtle Rock Segment of the Ice Age Trail where I have never run into another soul on the trail. It's pure wilderness and it's a challenging trail, and we love it.
That spot straight ahead is where we want to go. Dead end.
But after only about a mile of hiking, we ran into a dead-end. Beavers had re-routed the pond over the trail and flooded the surrounding woods. I've run into this in past years, but have almost always been able to find a way around it. Not today. I tried going across the beaver dam but it wasn't sturdy enough to hold me and the woods beyond the dam were completely flooded. I couldn't see a dry way to get through.
VIDEO (dead-end trail at Turtle Rock):
It was extremely disappointing. But the dogs had a good time swimming in the pond, chasing each other and chewing on beaver sticks. And another good thing, Jake got to see his first beaver dam. Silver linings.
VIDEO (dogs playing on beaver dam):
On the drive home, I detoured to see if we could visit the Prairie Dells area, but that was also very crowded with several dogs around. We drove on.
I stopped at another one of our old hiking spots, the Wisconsin River Forest Unit, between Wausau and Merrill. That seemed promising since there was only one truck in the parking lot. But as we headed into the trail, it was so overgrown with raspberry bushes that the dogs actually yelped when they got pricked. We turned back and I threw sticks for them at the primitive boat launch, but it was boring and lame, so we got back into the car.
I apologized to the dogs all the way home. I felt like such a failure that I couldn't give them a proper adventure this weekend. I guess I can find solace in the fact that we'll be going on a super-fun camping trip in a couple weeks - Jake's first! Alan and I are looking forward to that adventure and introducing Jake to his first trip camping in the woods.