Age of Discovery Panic Attack

At my current job, I get federal holidays off, including Columbus Day. I have some issues with Columbus and like the newer tradition of recognizing the impact of colonization on indigenous people. Whatever it is called, I'm glad it is a paid day away from work.

Piper and I headed to the woods, as we both needed a bit of nature therapy. One set of my parents lives on a lake in northeastern Wisconsin, where there are a lot of national forest and other lands with assorted levels of protection against destruction. I had some issues that led to my not taking my bike to Wisconsin and instead planning on just doing a lot of walking in the woods.

Yesterday, Piper and I took our traditional walk to the river, once the site of an earthen dam, to see what's up.

A cloudy day. Some years this view to the north makes my heart burst.

My friend.

The ground is mangled from all the deer that enter the water here. One winter I saw a moose print close to this spot. 

Looking south. This is where we used to catch crayfish as kids.

We actually ran a good chunk of the route to and from the river yesterday, which tuckered out my now-geriatric doodle and caused her to move pretty gingerly when she woke up this morning. This cloudy afternoon, my mom, the auntly neighbor (in the woods, people a mile away are neighbors) Beth, Piper and I went to check out an area that I'd seen described as a hiking/biking/snowshoe trail.

"Why am I in the back of the SUV and not on a seat?!? Also, I'm super anxious to get in the woods!" 

View of... Vista Lake? Deerskin River? from the parking area.

 

Even on vacation, I can't get away from e-cigarettes. We saw these packages for the super-high nicotine loved-by-kids JUUL near the ATV trail.

There are no photos of what happened after we found these packages. Cameras were not on our minds. 

At this point, the trail was actually a dirt road. We paused to move to the side of the road because a truck was headed our way. While Piper normally sticks close to me, I moved with her into an area of land where some trees had been cut down to make sure that she didn't inadvertently walk in front of the truck. 

Like I said, she normally sticks close to me, but she smelled something and had her nose to the ground and was intent on following the scent. I entertained this because she usually doesn't stray, was in view, is incompetent in the animal chasing/killing department, and is not sneaky enough to catch big mammals off-guard. She has only been that interested in smelling something when we found some coyote tracks in the area when she was just a pup, and I thought I'd indulge her for a minute.

As she had her nose to the ground, she wound through the cut down trees and brush to lower land. I called for her and she looked around but couldn't see me. She wound further down and away from me. I called to her and waved my arms, but she couldn't see me. I could still see her, but she was winding further down and away from me. And then I couldn't see her. 

I jogged down through the brush and saw her, and she was panicking. (Meanwhile, I could hear my mom from the other direction, shouting for me, not sure where I went and if I was in the woods or if I had a run-in with that truck. I just yelled "yeah" and kept heading to Piper.) Piper hates water and had just stepped into an area that looks like solid ground but was layers of moss on water in a marshy area. She started freaking out trying to get to solid ground, jumping up on to clumps of moss, sinking down, and going further and further out into the marsh. I pretty much lost my shit, as horrible scenarios flashed through my mind quickly. Would I lose sight of her? How would I find her?

Somehow, I got her to slow down as I yelled some combination of "no" and "stay" as I ran out into the marsh. I was knee deep in water (the air temperature was 40 degrees), hoping that I wouldn't hit any spots of any quicksand-like substance or deep pockets in the water that would stop me from reaching Piper before she got further away. She finally saw me and stopped and waited for me to grab her and help her to land. She was panting in a scary, old man pneumonia-sounding way that makes me think that she was as close to having a heart attack as I was. 

We got back, got dry and warm, and had some snacks. She's snoring away now. I hope she never repeats this type of Columbus-era explorer adventure into uncharted territory. I guess I'm like the Isabella or Ferdinand in this story and will need to keep tighter reins on the expedition.