SP River trail north of Hereford Bridge

 We're now in October and I woke up to cold feet and hands.  It was 57F at sunrise.  Fall is here! The seasons always come on time.

I waited almost an hour to walk Wolfie, then Gretchen and Hansel, around the neighborhood.

It was a near-perfect day for a hike, the high temperature only reaching the low 70s, with puffy clouds.  I had to get out.  So at 12:30pm I packed the current front yard dogs, Wolfie, Hansel and Gretchen (leaving Sweetie at home) into the truck and walked three miles north along the official river trail north of the Hereford Bridge.  I started at the extension trail a quarter-mile west of the Bridge.  This way I was far enough from whoever had parked a pick-up at the usual parking area and my dogs wouldn't be a nuisance.

I was barely on the extension trail when I came across my second Gila Monster in six weeks.  This lizard was right off the trail facing the trail.  Hansel wanted nothing to do with the hissy lizard, but both Wolfie and Gretchen got too close to it to my liking.  I screamed so loudly, I surely scared all the illegals hiding in the grass. (I didn't see any illegals, but the river and the trail are popular pick-up points for load drivers)

The last time I walked this trail, three weeks ago, the trail a mile north of Hereford Road was too flooded to traverse.  Today the water is gone, but evidence of recent flooding is marked in the dried mud.  Hoof marks pressed into the mud, created a deep and uneven surface that made walking on the trail an ankle-twister. The further north I walked, the more mud pits I encountered, and of course the dogs had to jump in for their mud baths.

The dense pigweed along the trail is now dried and prickly, making bushwhacking more treacherous.

I made the first big wash my turn-around point, three miles north of the road.  It took an hour to get here. I had last been this far north back in late 2018, walking this with Bill K and Susan and all our dogs.  I wanted to see how the terrain has  changed since this most recent active monsoon season that ended yesterday. 

The wash leading east to the river was dry until I was a quarter-mile from the banks.  Now the wash was damp.  The dogs were happy to see water, but I was surprised to see it flow muddy.  Had the short rainfall last night swept more silt north from Mexico?

I let the dogs frolic, then walked a short distance north to the logjam.  This logjam was here in 2018--I still have visions of Minnie swimming in the deep water here-- so the course of the river here hasn't changed much in four years.  The one new thing was a depression full of water just to the west of this logjam.

I didn't stay long.  I let the dogs frolic in the water for a bit.  It was 2pm, time to head back and get ready for SteveT's Oktoberfest meal at his RV park.  We had agreed to meet at 5pm.

We went back the way we came, through the uneven caked mud flats, dense grass, and the exposed wide road.  The Gila Monster had moved and wasn't at the location anymore when we got back to the truck.

I like knowing my dogs are well-exercised, so leaving them tethered up while I was at the Oktoberfest did not bother me.  Wolfie and Gretchen stayed behind, but Hansel drove with me to Whetstone.  He stayed in the truck resting for the first hour.

The Quail Ridge RV Resort Park's Ocoberfest was surprisingly nice.  It started at 4pm and Steve and I got there at 5:15pm.  The food was running low, but we both got sauerkraut, bratwurst (I had mine in a bun with mustard), potato salad and then dessert afterward.  Steve treated me to two pints of Founder's Dirty Bastard Scottish Ale.  That beer always reminds me of my trips to Northwest Indiana, as that beer is sold all over the Great Lakes area.

There were several men dressed in lederhosen.  Typical Bierfest music played over the intercom, and blue-white Bavarian flags adorned the ceilings of the clubhouse. I told Steve that Bavarians differ from Prussians in that they prefer to sit down and take their time drinking (coffee or beer) and eating.  This is the German concept of "Gemuetlichkeit," or "comfort."Prussians tend to take their coffee on the go while standing up.  Oktoberfest is a Bavarian festival, where people sit down to drink beer. It's a time to chill and enjoy the beer. 

My heritage is further north, in Sachsen-Anhalt and its capital Madgeburg where my mother was born, an area heavily influenced by the more frantic Prussians who preferred to drink their coffee and beer on the go because they always had other towns and cities to plunder. It's an interesting study of the North versus South Germans that still rings true today.

After our filling meal, we took our dogs Hansel and Trace and walked the perimeter of the RV park, walking past some rather elaborate and lighted homes. Some lots look more permanent than seasonal.  We walked 2.5 miles by the end of my visit.  

Thus ended an active day for me.  I had walked over 12 miles by the time the clock struck midnight.