Urban Training

 Hey Tribe,

A different look and feel of our photos to share with you today.  We recently attended a Search Dog workshop and some of it had urban settings on the agenda.  

SAR dogs relax while waiting for their turn.

Buildings, playground surfaces, and some highway underpass areas were settings where the dogs applied search work skills.

Fly and I gleaned a lot of new information and I am eager to incorporate what we learned into our ongoing training sessions.

Maybe we will take more urban photos for you, because I am really loving how these turned out; special thank you to my teammates for snapping photos of Fly and me doing our thing.

One Year With the Pirate

Hey Tribe,

Remember the souvenir I brought back from Portugal?  It was puppy Rex! 

Armando Salazar Da Villa Saloia
(captain of the Black Pearl from Pirates of the Caribbean)

Well, here we are one year later, so I thought it would be fun to recreate our arrival home photo.

              

The Pirate sure has grown hasn't he?!  Good thing too, because those ears were enormous!

Swan Lake Boardwalk

 Hey Tribe,

There's a new trail in town, thanks to the folks at Great Land Trust.  

I love boardwalks!

The trailhead is easy to miss amongst the construction zone of new houses being built literally right next to the trail and parking is only available along the side of the narrow road.

Don't worry, it gets better.

After an extra loop around the neighborhood, we spotted the trailhead sign, sprayed what we thought was sufficient mosquito repellant all over our bodies, and merrily set off down the wooded trail.

Fly is excited about this new trail!

There are convenient little signposts for travelers and we selected the boardwalk to the lake to begin our walk. 

The boardwalk surface material changes a few times, which gave Little Chappie pause, but in his eagerness for adventure, he managed just fine.  It is a narrow boardwalk, so don't plan to take your double sided baby stroller on this one.

A chipper stream flows through the area and I especially loved the little bridge and walking above the pools of water that appear and disappear along the walk.

Fly must get in the water, of course.

It is a short stroll; the platform overlooking the lake would be a fun place to picnic and swan and other water fowl sightings are very likely.

We wanted to explore more of the trail, so we retraced our steps to try out the forest loop.  It wasn't a dull backtrack, because we saw flowers and other interesting tidbits that we had missed in our eagerness to reach the platform.

This part of the trail is still being developed, but we didn't have a problem finding our way.  It is a single lane path through slightly dense brush and is quite possibly mosquito mecca.

Flowers were in abundance and once the construction sounds cease it will be easy to imagine you're in the middle of the 100 acre wood.

TheMother stops to enjoy the fragrance.

There are some fun natural features that make this trail engaging and I imagine we could visit several times throughout the year and not be bored.

We chose to veer left at the split in the loop, which seems the best option as the incline is gradual and we ended up walking downhill when nearing the end of the loop - something my aching muscles from hiking Pepper Peak appreciated.

If you need a quick respite from town, want to do a bit of forest bathing, or need somewhere scenic to bring visitors with mobility limitations, this is a great option.  It offers just enough adventure, is easy on the body, is quite Alaskan. 

Right now, it is a relatively unknown trail, so you have a good chance of having the trail to yourself, which is a big win in my book.