Friday finally brought some sweet relief from the intense heat and humidity that we’ve been having. Usually, such a drop in temps is preceded by thunderstorms and heavy rains that would turn the dirt roads into a rutted, muddy mess, but this time the cool temps just sort of appeared. With that, I was looking forward to getting out for a few miles on the dirt roads south of town without feeling like I was riding in a treeless rainforest.
I headed to the Dirt Road Launching Pad to start the ride and headed up Broomfield Road with grand plans of hours of saddle time and an SD card full of amazing photos. Reality soon set in and I settled for a 25-mile ride, some OK photos, and an interesting canine experience.
The dirt and gravel roads of Isabella County are dry and dusty right now. Sadly, many are littered with washboard bumps due to the heavy farm equipment that uses the roads. While those bumps can be a pain (literally), I can’t complain too much because it’s the farms and the equipment that keeps so many of our roads from becoming long stretches of pavement and all the speeding, texting, coffee drinking, phone talking, YouTube watching, selfie-taking, cyclist killing motorists that come along with those roads.
I rode, I took some photos, saw tons of deer and was heading towards the Escape when I picked up a companion.
I had just turned on to Millbrook Road and had about 3 miles to go when a dog came running out into the road. I stopped, told it to stay and then pedaled on. It followed. [Repeat the last part of paragraph about 5 times please]
I stopped a few more times and even tried to loop back towards the yard that it had run out from, but it was uninterested. It would take off down the road, dart into the woods and fields every so often and then come back after me. Every time I thought it had enough and would go home, it would appear out of nowhere and continue running after me or down the road ahead of me. This went on for two miles.
It became apparent that this dog was all in on following me, so with a mile to go, I just accepted the fact that it was going to follow me the whole way back to the car and that I would be forced to drive it back to its home. My only concern in the last mile was just to make sure it stayed near me and away from any cars that may not see it as they crested the coming hills.
We made it to the car, I loaded my bike and opened the passenger side door. She (I call her she now that she’s in my car, I see the lack of junk and plethora of nipples) jumped right in and made herself at home.
I put the window down, she put her head out and let her ton wag in the wind as we retraced our path in the car.
I pulled into the driveway of the house, she saw two other dogs, jumped out the window and took off toward the back of the house. There were no signs of the owners around, so I just backed out and went home. I have a feeling they had no idea that their dog was 3 miles away from home and just took a car ride with a stranger.
I couldn’t believe that this dog ran for 3 miles! My Jake (the dog) won’t even walk around the block, let alone run 3 miles!
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It was a nice, and somewhat interesting, ride. Looking forward to the weekend, watching some World Cup matches and getting outside to do some stuff with my camera.
Later.