The Long Walk Home

I stayed up New Years Eve and watched the ball drop. Dogger, The Kitty and I each had a spot of champagne- which Dogger liked until she realized it wasn’t water while The Kitty was put out that I even made him taste it - It was $8.99 a bottle from the grocery store, I shouldn’t have been surprised The Kitty didn’t like it. I drank two glasses and dumped the rest into my New Years Day greens and black eyed peas and then I stayed up too late reading my book.

I party hard.

New Years Day, however. I got moving. I ate some of my greens and peas and Dogger and I headed over to Broskey and Alphagals to go for a long walk . I decided we wanted to do this after an unfulfilling trip to the park New Years Eve. Curse Drama Dog.

Dogger was very excited about going for a walk.

About two hours into our walk, the first time I told Dogger It’s okay baby girl, we’re almost home, I was lying, lying, lying. I didn’t know I was lying, but I was lying. The second time I told her that, about an hour later, she just looked at me. She knew I was lying to her.. A couple hours later, when we were actually almost home, and I told her that again, she looked at me as if to say You know what? Why don’t you just stop talking for a while. I don’t want either of us to say anything we’ll be sorry for. We should just walk in silence for a while, okay?

In my defense, I did think the trail looped around. And it does, as Alphgal told me later : The earth does curve.

At one point I took a path off the path, it was as paved and marked as the “real” path and it seemed to go back in the direction I needed to be going in, and I thought that if I followed it, I would at be heading back in the direction I had started in, the land of milk and honey where I had left my car. And so we walked and walked and walked and oddly, on this trail there were no walkers or bikers or horses. Finally, a pair of horseback riders past us and I at least thought we were heading in the right direction. I never saw them again. Time passes, at about the time I was concerned that I had made a terrible mistake, a biker passed us., I asked her if she knew where the trail spit out and she said she didn’t know but we could always turn around. Easy for someone on a bike to say. Bikes are faster and they cover more ground then say, someone on foot. She disappeared ahead of us and I finally saw a horse print which laid to rest my suspicions that they had been raised up bodily. We walked and walked and I was like Shouldn’t I be hearing the road by now? And where is everybody? Before we turned off I felt like I was at the mall.. And then the biker came back and reported the trail had washed out and she sped away.

!@#$&*^%.

We turned around. It’s okay baby girl, we’re almost home”. Walk, walk, walk, walk. We got back to the main trail and met about 3000 fellow hikers/bikers/horseback riders. And no one else looked like they had been walking forever. The other dogs weren’t trudging, they were trotting. Pretty much I was dragging Dogger along behind me. And we walked some more because the end of the trail must be soon right? And we pass a grave yard and I had dark thoughts about this damn endless trail This is what purgatory is. Act right or you’ll just keep walking and walking and going nowhere. Be good or spend eternity walking this trail. Heaven may be at the other end but by the time you get there, you’ll be too tired to care.

And we kept walking. We could have turned around but what if the end was around the next turn? Finally, a You Are Here sign . I was relived to see we were not actually in Virginia, the map, which I read incorrectly ( how many You Are Here arrows does one sign need? Is it really necessary to give an example of what the You Are Here arrow looks like?!), seemed to put me dangerously near Cary and even worse The Airport! You don’t walk to the airport! The airport is not near where I left my car!

We turned around. It’s okay baby girl, we’re almost home!. Walk, walk, walk.

And we walked right into Broskey, Alphagal and Tiny E! Yay! Dogger asked to ride in Tiny E’s buggy. They went on their merry way and we walked on.

And on
and on
and on.

Seven miles is a very long way. I brought Dogger home and she passed out half way through her dinner. I'm going to be careful how I use the W word for a while.