town lake 10.15.17
Due to ACL, our weekly run this week was moved from its normal location start under the Mopac freeway to the I-35 parking area. I found parking in front of the Holiday Inn on the north side of the lake. Alan (FIL) told me earlier to try and go on the pedestrian bridge over the water which I still hadn’t been on (I know!). So, we started walking west towards Congress. I noticed right away that the runners and walkers on this side of the trail were different from those on the Mopac side. They seemed more serious like athletes, less leisurely and there were not as many strollers or dogs – which was a nice break! Ari and I really enjoyed the artwork next to the trail. There were so many installations (see post on the Bike Installation that was incredible!) and cool architecture on this side of Lady Bird lake. It made the walk more enjoyable, for the first half anyway. Once we got to the bat bridge you could definitely smell it and I went up and crossed the lake on Congress. Ari’s first time on a “major” street which made me a little nervous but it was early morning (9:30ish) so there weren’t many cars out. Alan told me that the ped bridge started at the Statesman (which also has free parking on the weekends) so we went back down to the trail there. This was where I noticed that Ari had lost the only binky that we had for our trip! She also lost a Taggie but I wasn’t so upset about that because Bella had already chewed off the plastic parts. Luckily, I had brought a pouch for her breakfast but wasn’t sure how long she would last on the way back before I would need to give it to her. I found out two minutes later she was ready for her pouch. This bought me about 10 more minutes as she sucked all the contents, and then some, out. I was nervous about our return trip because now we had lost the binky and I wasn’t sure how to cross the lake to get back to the north side. I knew there had to be a way close to 35 and we had reached the point of no return so I would have to keep going rather than go back. This is when I started jogging (not my forte) just so that Ari wouldn’t notice the extra time and that I didn’t know where I was going. This anxiety I have about her fussing I’ll reserve for another post but I didn’t get to enjoy the ped bridge as much as I wanted to. I also realized how dependent we are on that damn pacifier. We surfaced from the trail next to Travis Heights entrance because I didn’t want to go under I-35 and be trapped on the south side of the lake. This was the hard part of the jog because we were on Riverside (another first) going uphill mind you. Past the dog park there was a little pedestrian walkway on the west side of the bridge (where the photo was taken). This is where I saw that there was also one on the other side of the highway too – where clearly there were other joggers who were more familiar with this trail. Oh well you live and learn. Ari didn’t like not having her binky and now finished with her pouch she threw it on the ground angrily. I picked it up and I gave her my water bottle to suck on for the rest of our trip. Lesson learned: always bring an extra binky. The weather was cool and we hung out in the park for a little bit after we got back to the car. She loves seeing other dogs and I love hanging out with her Sunday mornings.
Links to all the stuff
