Saturday morning walk-about (with dog)

We picked up an inch of rain last night. The towns along the I-94 corridor 25 miles south of us received 2"-to-3" and were under flood advisories.

At nine this morning, I decide to take a shake-down walk-about and at the last moment grabbed Zeus, our 10-year-old German Shepherd.

Nothing catastrophic happened but I called for a hotdog pickup at the 6.5 mile mark. Zeus was fading fast.

Even before that, I modified our route to drop in on a friendly neighbor who let Zeus tank-up on water. Then, before we left, I hosed him down to make sure his coat was damp.

Not in BAD shape but clearly running out of gas. He was  slowing down on the up-grades and speeding up a little bit on the down-grades.

His fur looks funky because it is wet. The dirt is usually more of a butterscotch pudding color and the dull brown indicates that it is still damp from the rain.

Humans have an advantage over dogs because we can sweat. We can also adjust our clothing to the weather. It was only 78F but the humidity was high. All that sparkly stuff is sweat.

I already put in an order for some collapsible, silicon dog bowls. He already has a back-pack so it will not be a big-deal to put 1.5l of water and a bowl in his back-pack. The only (minor) issue is that it might take him five minutes to camel-up the water.

We saw this while walking. That is a lot of money to have parked in the weeds. I wonder what the story is.

Mrs ERJ had this waiting for me when I got back home. I LOVE that woman.

8 miles for the shake-down walk-about. TEVA Omnium 2 Sandals exceeded expectations. A compression sock and an athletic sock on my left leg and an athletic sock on my right leg. Cargo shorts and bright yellow Tee shirt performed as expected. Electrolyte mix needed more sugar and salt but it was OK and I went through 20 oz per hour which is about what I planned for. I have a larger fanny pack already on the way, the two bottles were a tight squeeze.The next trip will include compression shorts and SPF before I head out.

Next trip will be with more hydration for Zeus, an earlier start time (for cooler temps) and I will clip his nails first. Having a way-station lined up was a great move although the stop did not perk him up as much as I had hoped. Maybe we left too soon. I need to get better at "reading" his condition. Watering him out of half-liter water bottles will give me information about how much intake he is getting.