A Long Walk

Yesterday was a day off from work for me and it should have been for Mikey too but he ended up having to work.  After running some errands in the morning, I decided that the weather would be perfect for walking up to the park with Diesel.

I gathered up our usual necessities; water, bowl, sunblock, sunglasses and put them all in my little backpack and Diesel and I proceeded on down the road.  I don't think Diesel and I have many walks together where we don't talk with at least one person while we're out and about.  And sure enough, we hadn't even made it to the CRT yet when we were stopped by a fellow neighbor who had recognized us from walks the previous summer.  We stopped and chatted for a bit, and he offered to trade Diesel for his dog.  Poor thing!  We eventually got back to walking again and made it down to the trail.

New flowers behind the Dentist office along the trail

Along the Clinton River Trail we passed quite a few more people, surprising since it was noon on a Friday.  I guess I wasn't the only one who thought it would be a great day to have off of work.  We made a brief stop to get some water, but then we were right back on our way again.

We made it downtown and headed over to Riverside Park.  For 1) I thought it would be nice to sit and enjoy the river for a bit and 2) I really had to use the restroom!  Again I have to mention how awesome Diesel's new leash is, when we made it over to the restrooms, I was able to just clip Diesel's leash around a close tree and I didn't have to worry about him getting away. Not that I really think he would go anywhere...  Another thing that was refreshingly nice was that the bathrooms at Riverside have really improved since I was a kid.  I haven't had to stop in there much over the years, but it was nice to see that they had changed out all of the manual facilities with those handy automatic sensors.  And they have replaced the paper towel with one of those high-powered hand dryers.  The place was exceptionally clean.  It's a restroom I won't be afraid to use in future.

Auburn Hills Riverside Park

After our bathroom visit we headed on back down to the riverside and chose a nice shady spot to sit and chill for a bit.  There were a few people in the park that day enjoying their lunch or reading a book.  Not too many kids at that point, no one on the playground equipment.  The river was running pretty low and slow on this day, we haven't had much rain since last weekend.  The ducks seemed to enjoy its lazy pace for a change.  However this completely bored Diesel. He was ready to walk again, but where would we go from here? As we made our way back out of the park it was nice to see a small group of seniors from the local American House were settling in to have a picnic.

We exited the park on Squirrel Rd and headed north.  My sister lives on that end of town and maybe she would wank to take her dog for a walk in the nicely shaded River Walk Park across the way.  We made our way over to her house and stopped for some water. Unfortunately, she had a hair appointment in a few minutes and wouldn't be able to go.  We had a nice visit anyway and said we'd try to plan the next one better.

After refreshing for a bit, Diesel and I made our way back to Squirrel.  It was starting to get quite a bit warmer now, and the look on Diesel's face made it clear that we should head back home.  We crossed the street and entered River Walk Park.  It's a little known fact that you can walk the trails all the way through the park and end up in the Adams Ridge Sub.  That's a nice little shortcut back to the trail and then back on home again.

The boardwalk at River Walk Park - Auburn Hills

We were gone for about 2 hours and managed to cover about 4.5 miles.  Not bad on a pretty warm day.  I took quite a few photos and have started posting all of my pictures to Picasa.  Now my most recent photos will be displayed along the bottom of this blog, along with a link to view the gallery all together.

As always I welcome your feedback!  Feel free to follow @DieselStomping on twitter.  Also, feel free to leave comments, let me know what you would like to see in future posts.  Diesel and I are always looking to see new places, meet new people and participate in what ever we can!  If you like us, share us with your friends and family who may be interested too!