A Fall Morning Walk

Our typical weekday morning routine is to frantically pry the teenager out of bed, run him through the shower, shovel some breakfast in his mouth and then hop in the car and drop him at the high school several miles away. The dogs LOVE the morning routine and get really excited about the time we grab the leashes and poop bags out of the closet, and they eagerly jump into the car for the ride - Rusty prefers the far back of our ancient Trooper, but Allie always sits in the middle seat and wraps herself around her boy for the entire 10 minute ride (and the boy loves that part, too and it gets his day off to a good start.)

Once we've gotten the kid out of the car, we turn around and try to remember whose turn it is for morning walkies (my spouse and I alternate mornings, but I usually do the evening walk). We have several different places we start the walk from and as it was my turn this morning, I decided to be dropped off at a point we call the "Emigration Route" (very originally named, as we walk past the small local market which is called . . . . . you guessed it, Emigration Market). It's about a 2 miles walk back home.

It was really beautiful this morning and I was looking foward to the walk. Fall has definitely arrived and the leaves are starting to turn and I love the slanted autumn light. As a bonus, it wasn't "Garbage Day" -- walking Allie on "Garbage Day" is really a nightmare, as she is very sound reactive to the noisy, lumbering waste management and recycling trucks and a simple walk turns into 30 minutes of frantically trying to hold onto Allie, who insists on acting like a 30 lb. sled dog. She has the best commando crawl I've ever seen. Ugh!

We started off on our walk.

Stopping to pose for a picture in front of one of the better done "zero-scaping" yards.

Our path soon crosses the breakfast cafe "Eggs in the City". The pups like to say hello to a nice Weirmariner pup who apparently comes with his owner every morning for breakfast, but he we must have missed him this morning.

Waiting to cross at the corner.

Drat! I'd forgotten that the city is in process of replacing all of the old sidewalks and Allie is not all that fond of dumptrucks, either.

Yikes, let's get going!!!!!

Saying "hello" to some friends. (Rusty is walking to my other side at this point, as he is a little intimidated by these dogs, although they usually don't bark or growl -- until we're down the sidewalk).

"I'm tired of posing for pictures!"

The end is in sight. The dogs are waiting for permission to cross.

Home at last! (Geez, you'd think I'd have at least taken the time to photoshop the glaring security company sign out of the picture. Oh well.)

It was a nice walk!

The dogs like this route, but I think their favorite one is the "Bagel Run", so maybe that's where we'll go next time. :)