Meandering thoughts from dogs to cake

The girls made their 3rd annual pilgrimage to the Musher's Bowl in Bridgton two weekends ago. Their 30-minute ride on the sled with the dogs has been the highlight of the past two (going on three) winters for them.

Last year I rode with L. on the dog sled and caught some video out on the lake during that ride. This year I didn't sign up to ride with them (finances were tight and this is not a cheap activity) but chatted with a volunteer snowmobile driver at Highland Lake about taking a ride on a snowmobile instead. They run short rides by donation and I thought I had worked out my timing to catch some video of the girls on their ride while I was in the snowmobile sled. The snowmobiles were running parallel to the dog sleds so I thought it would be possible.

Nope.

The dogs were too fast and we never did catch up to them in the snowmobile.

(Well, I am sure it would have been possible to catch the dogs but I was riding on a sled-type attachment to the snowmobile and my driver didn't think it was safe to drive the machine too fast towing the sled.)



Our day turned away from the dogs to a meander through Bridgton's village for some window shopping. An item caught my eye that I thought would be great for our 50s-style camper in an antique shop window. Since Fino is all about second-hand shopping, he insisted we go in the store to find out how much it cost.

The item was an old 50s cake cover just like the one my grandmother and mother had when I was growing up. It's not that I plan to make cake while camping but having a pan with a cover has many uses when grilling and camp cooking. Fino could come up with just as many uses for the pan as I could in the store to justify why it would be useful. And the fact that the cover fits our camper's 50s motif was the icing (so to speak) on the cake.

I inquired about the price (it was surprisingly reasonable) so I bought it. I also found out while making that purchase that the world is a small one. Through a series of seemingly unrelated comments and questions about old campers, old cars and people, I discovered that my dad and the shop keeper knew each other.

My take-away from that visit - I was meant to own this cake cover.

But to get back to dogs, mushing and snow... G. has had notions of teaching her foster puppy about skijoring this winter. Since G. loves to xc ski, she wanted to be able to take the puppy out on some ski adventures when trails allow canine visitors.

Our puppy friend is very high energy and he absolutely loves the snow. This would have seemed a good combination for skijoring. But no, his love of the white stuff includes jumping around and getting uncontrollably excited about it. Focus isn't part of his brain function right now.

G. figured out before I could offer my 2-cents that there was no way she was going to feel safe rigging herself up to the puppy to try skijoring.

It was also clear why the foster pup is not in his training program yet.

Puppy does enjoy his runs on a long leash through the woods. G. doesn't actually hold his leash but the length of it drags enough to remind him he's tied to us and gives us an advantage of catching the leash more easily. Truth be told, none of us are brave enough to handle his leash while still attached to our skis until he's run a while and is showing signs of slowing down.

G.'s ideas of combing her winter sports with a dog have been dashed (again) this year.