Distance Limitations

I am feeling a little bit cooped up lately, which is strange considering it's summer, the weather's been gorgeous, and I've been outside a whole lot.  But the problem is, I get bored easily (WAY easily), and we have found our world considerably shrunk by Little Miss Barf-In-The-Car.

We are fortunate to live in a Village that's out in the country, so we have some wooded walks along the Erie Canal that don't require a car trip at all.  But from our house, one direction on the trail leads through a swamp that's nearly impassable this time of year because of swirling, terrorizing hordes of blood-thirsty mosquitoes and droves of savage deer flies.  The other direction is nice, but I'm simply tired of it.  We walk it nearly every single day because having a hyperactive puppy means needing to wear said puppy out.  So we've been taking daily 3+ mile walks either around the Village or along the very flat, fine gravel canal path that I don't find particularly interesting.  Technically there are trees, but it's not very nature-ey.

Here's the way you know I'm completely bored with our walk options: I haven't even been taking my camera along.  That's a bad sign.  We just fast walk/jog our route to get it over with.  By the way, it doesn't wear out the puppy much at all - Phoebe's still raring to go when we get home.  Simon, however, is exhausted by the time we get back.  He's badly out of shape, poor thing.  Phoebe's going to get us all into considerably better shape, frankly. 

Simon gone splat, post walk:

Phoebe, post walk:

And the damage the Tasmanian devil can cause if we don't wear her out thoroughly enough:

Although, then she gives me a face like this and she's instantly forgiven:

But we can't drive more than about 20 minutes with Phoebe, or she starts getting drooly and hurls.  We are making slow progress - we used to be limited to about 5 minutes before the droolies hit - but we still can't take her far at all.  So for now, almost all of our favorite hiking spots are off limits, even on weekends when we have time to get to them.

We did try one crazy adventure with Phoebe, involving the canoe.  There are photos, I hope, but since I took them with a disposable water-proof camera rather than my decidedly non-waterproof Nikon D90, I still have to develop them.  The only stretch of water I could think of that was within the non-barf range was the Seneca River, so we put the kevlar canoe on the car and tootled up to a nearby DEC fishing put-in.  On the whole I am pleased with the adventure because Phoebe did fantastic in the canoe.  She was a little more fidgety than I'd like, but didn't panic, dive overboard, nor flip us.  She also did not get seasick, which was another worry of mine.  I call that a good start. 

Canoeing on the Seneca River during the Saturday of 4th of July weekend, though, bit it.  There was so much boat traffic that it was downright nerve wracking.  Most of the boats were fairly curteous, and we hugged the shores to be out of their way.  But one overloaded speed boat drove right at us at high velocity and turned aside at the very last minute in an attempt to swamp us.  Oh ha ha, folks.  Very funny.  And very dangerous. 

I was furious.  I contemplated hurling something at the boat to give vent to my outrage, but I'd engaged in minimalist packing for fear Phoebe would swamp us and had nothing to throw other than one of the dogs or a paddle, both of which seemed inadvisable.  Thankfully I'm a good enough canoer that it's mighty hard to flip me, and with my shouting instructions to my poor husband, we weathered the massive waves without incident. 

I shall not be returning to the Seneca River again any time soon, however.

I have gotten one suggestion for another place we can canoe that's within our current driving radius, and that's 9 Mile Creek.  So perhaps we'll try that this weekend.  Or perhaps we'll just deal with the barf factor and travel further to a favorite hiking spot that's a little further afield.