A Small Adventure

Our trip to Yosemite convinced us that we needed to find some good weekend hikes, so we headed out Highway 12 through the vineyards, turning yellow and red. The crush is over and the autumn lull between harvest and pruning has begun.  Ozzie seems to have been reinvigorated by his four day stay with Maddi the house/dog sitter, so we took him along. 
It was hard to tell from the early morning sky what weather the day would produce.

We have always intended to take the hike up Hood Mountain, which is literally right in our backyard, but somehow we have never gotten around to it. Without a lunch or a raincoat, we didn't do it this morning either, but got to the Valley View Overlook and took in the misty Sonoma Valley before heading back down to the coffee shop near the bottom of our road for a sandwich.

I have the same problem with my new hiking boots that I have had with every other pair I've ever owned. Despite brand, design, size, method of lacing, no matter how short I cut my toenails, they have all caused what I call "black toe" on steep downhill terrain. My toes bang into shoes which are perfectly comfortable on level or uphill ground and cause blisters under the toenail. Pressure from the blister builds up, the downhill hike is painful, my toenail turns black and eventually falls off. It takes a year to grow a new one. OilMan suggested either getting lambswool like dancers put in their toe shoes and stuffing it into an oversized boot, or getting a pair of shoes like Bozo the clown. 

Ozzie thoroughly enjoyed himself, eyeing the one creek we crossed with a trickle of water in it, rolling in dust and covering himself with an ochre colored patina and finding sticks. And he did the whole thing with no shoes….