We live in the Central Valley of California, which means that there are mountains on both sides of us. The mountains to the east are our favorite hangout – Tahoe – because we have so many places to explore where we can actually LEGALLY be off leash exploring!!
We haven’t done a lot of adventuring on the western sided ‘mountains’ – although they are more like hills – mostly because that is what is called the Bay Area and it is full of people and cars which make lots of traffic. So although it is technically closer, momma prefers to not drive in traffic so we drive further in less time to go to Tahoe.
Does that make sense? Not sure if I’m explaining that correctly!
On Saturday we had to run an errand that was in a town towards the Bay Area, so momma decided we should go do a hike in the Bay Area hills. We got a great recommendation from our friend Amy, and after fighting traffic for a while we finally found the trail.
It was a beautiful trail as you can see – so many great hills and it was sunny and warm! Unfortunately it said all dogs need to be on leash on the trail. Now while that doesn’t always mean anything to momma, all the dogs we saw were also on leash, so she thought we better follow the rules. Also there were some mountain bikers bombing down the hills and whipping around corners, so it was a bit of a safety issue for all involved too.
Once we climbed up high enough we made it to a fire road which is where we are actually legally allowed to be off leash – yay! Momma let us off and Loki Lolo and I had a great time running around and exploring all the smells. We could see a gigantic coyote just one ridge over and we had crazy flashbacks to our time in Tomales Bay.
At the very tip top momma took some pictures of us and saw something on my face – to her horror it was a TICK! We haven’t had ticks since we moved to California so she said her heart sank knowing that we must surely be covered in them up in the grasses which are just starting to grow for the winter.
And right she was – Loki Lolo and I were crawling with ticks which meant we have had countless tick inspections and combings and even more inspections now every time we have ANY kind of itch momma thinks IT IS A TICK!!!! AGHHHHHH!!!
Ok, so now the second tale of two hours. On Sunday we went two hours in the opposite direction to our favorite place ever – TAHOE!!! Since Dad came along momma decided to try out a new trail system called Tahoe Donner. And it was where she found a jackpot of trails!
The Tahoe Donner trail system is set up to be a winter wonderland for nordic skiers. But they also groom trails for fat biking (YAY!) and also have snowshoe trails. And lots of the trails – probably all of them but the nordic trails – are dog friendly! Since there isn’t enough snow for the trails to be groomed for the “ski season” we were allowed to go wherever we want. It was fun for momma to see where we would be able to easily take Betty fat biking with Loki Lolo and I so we can go bombing down the hills in the powder that we are PRAYING comes so very, very soon to Tahoe!!!
In a nutshell, that is the tale of two hours from where we live. We can be at the ocean in two hours, or in the mountains of Lake Tahoe. Which is why momma takes us on endless explorations because she says we are SO LUCKY to live here and that we should not waste a minute of it because we never know for how long we will get to tell the tale of two hours!!
Olaf 