The weather has been freaky of late, but in a GOOD way. Beach's are warm in San Fran, and canyons are cool out near the Central Valley. Not normal for this time of year, but our little pack has taken full advantage of these things, and as you can see, we rocked the Cali Outback right!
Because Chik-Chikka is new to us, I am not totally sure I can totally read how she is feeling. Sometimes, she looks really stressed, tired, and sick, and on those days, we just chill. Otherwise, to the limited degree I trust my intuition with her, I assume she is cool, and we take to nature for rompin' and hikin'.
Boomie Boom Boom Boom is a much easier read, and unless a limb is hanging off, I know he wants to go for a ride and get out to wherever there are dogs to hump and poop to roll-in. Our Saturday destination, Sunol's "Little Yosemite" came with a fair share of both, so it went without saying that the little man would be down wit' it.
Normally, Sunol in August is devilishly hot, and we wouldn't go anywhere near it, however, there was a freakishly cold day on Saturday which created high temps in the upper 70s/low 80s. It was - literally - perfect.
Naturally, what is perfect for me isn't always perfect for the chi since I don't have to go out in the sun wearing a black fur coat. In deference to his black fur problem, when possible, we chose a shaded trail over one out in the mid-day sun.
With the amount of time we have had in the car, plus with the time I was away and didn't have a chance to exercise with the little squirt (on top of the bad diet he enjoyed during our drives to and from SoCal), my little Chi hasn't been all that little in recent weeks. We have most definitely needed to be exercising early and often to help regain his diminutive stature. To that end, our weekend activity made a fairly significant down payment.
In fact, we had 4 days in a row of doing no less than a two mile hike, none of which was on flat terrain. The fact that the terrain isn't flat generally also means it is beautiful, and all of it was, but these sorts of aesthetic concerns impact me more than they do the little pooches. I can marvel at natural beauty and ponder the joys to the soul found in a canyon or a creek, and this helps me to forget the burn in my leg muscles as they propel my fat carcass up the hill. The doggies don't have such distractions - to them it is just an uphill slog.
Actually, I take that back. I am pleasantly distracted by the beauty I can see, and that makes things easier for me, but it would be wrong to insinuate that there are no sensory distractions for los perros locos - there are! On this trail, there was tons and tons of horse poop. Boom Boom did a Olympic-caliber swan dive into a roadapple during the 5 seconds I had him out of my sight (he has that type of timing perfected), and could not have been more pleased with himself for doing so. I am yet to see Chik-Chikka go for that sort of thing, but she is developing into a bit of a Boom-Boom devotee and imitator, doing whatever he does and gleefully joining in with his naughtier exploits (primarily barking at the cats and neighbors.) I fear it is only a matter of time before she too is incapable of passing by a plop without some sort of tactile interaction. One thing's sure - it will be easier to spot on her coat than his!
Thankfully, there was considerably less poop at hiking destination #2 - Chabot. In time, I would like to do the entire East Bay hills by trail (I forget the name, but one could circle the entire Bay by trail, not just the East Bay), and if I put my mind to it, I really think it possible. One of the largest chunks of the Meta-trail is through Chabot, and while I am interested in covering off on East Bay miles right now, we took some diversionary trails on this trip, including the old "Logger's Loop" from the pre-park days of Chabot. It was pretty righteous. The temps had warmed up a good deal from one day to the next, so shade was much more welcome. I have said many times how much I love the East Bay Park District for both the generous access afforded to off-leash doggies, as well as the the sheer size and diversity of the parks. I truly love the park system, but on this hike, I ran into my first WTF? moment - one which makes me angry even thinking about now, which sucks, because the doggies and I had such a righteous time.
For some reason, the entire area around Lake Chabot (and keep in mind, this is named Chabot Park), is all-but forbidden to locals and reserved for campers. I have no idea why the little kings who run that park decided there was to be ZERO day use for automobiles around the lake and entire southern end of the park, but that is the set up. There is even a camp guard there to make sure no one but those camping can get near the lake via car (and there is no day-use parking anywhere near the gate which would make it reasonable to walk in.) Whatever asshole decided this should be fired. They aren't running a private campground, they are running a public park. The lake is - duh - one of the prime, if not THE prime, destination in the park, and they have made it all but the private preserve of those who pay to camp. What local is going to pay for a campsite? Even if someone did, why the hell would they make such an awesome place all but off-limits for any reason? Ugh. I could go on, but it just makes me feel bad, and I don't want to feel bad. This ridiculousness has totally cooled me on my respect for the people behind the park system. It is inexplicable, and those behind it should be fired. Too often, little prince bureaucrats imagine that their job is to manage the public instead of serve the public. They have that wrong. As usual, nothing can be done as the princes are untouchable, but one hopes that someday, someone fixes the SOBs who decide this crap. Sigh...
So, forward on to the big HEATWAVE! With freakish warm temps along the water, there can be only one way to relieve the hot doggies - the beach!
Whenever that freakish heat comes, the first place we go is Fort Funston since that has the best beach for doggies, and that usually is too cold to enjoy, being the coldest place on earth and all!
This day however, it was super warm, and the doggies were super-pumped to hop down the dunes and get themselves some beach hiking going!
Actually, only one of the doggies wanted to hop down the dunes to the beach...the other wanted to be carried. Can you guess which one?
That said, once we got down to the beach, the little Chi turned the afterburners on, and ran around like a nut with a rubber butt!
I could have conducted a motion study for art students, or inertia trials for doctoral candidates in physics using the speed of my humble little Chihuahua on the Fort Funston beach. You'll never see a more active Boom-Boom than on a warm day when he is along the shore sans leash. He really had himself a time!
Girly Girl also seems to like the beach, though she is far from the nut about it that Boom Boom is.
One of the reasons I love her so much is that she seems to enjoy simple things so much. She just likes being out and walking with her little pack - that it is a beach is awesome and all, but I think it is the belonging that is the big turn on for her. She didn't have any real interest in going in the water, so I didn't put the floatie on her. She also didn't seem to want to run hard like Boomie (who has bad knees, and so loves the soft sand), so it mostly was just the cool ocean breeze, presence of so many happy doggies, and excitement and joy within her pack that seemed to be what made her do her spinnie-minnie-happy-dance/Stump-of-Fury-wiggle down on the shore. To each their own.
All in all, an excellent few day's hiking. Booms still has some double-chin issues I need to address, but we definitely made headway on bringing the size of his butt into compliance. I might have even made progress of that type myself. If not, it wasn't for a lack of trying.
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We can't take too many days off from hikin', and we really don't, but we rarely have both the weather and time (at the same time) to allow us to hit so many slices of paradise back-to-back like that. That we get to go to places like that at all is still pretty amazing to me. It is precisely the possibility of doing such things that keeps me in California to begin with. There aren't many places on earth so generous to the eye (and paw), and we are very lucky. I myself get the additional pleasure of seeing two pooches nearly PASS OUT from being tired - no mean feat let me tell you! When the old man can outwalk his defiant little canines, that is a victory for biped-kind. A small victory perhaps, but they all count!
Posted by rudayday at August 25, 2010 04:43 PM