No Trialee, No Workee

SUMMARY: Ellen's taking the summer off, apparently.

With no agility competitions looming, I'm finding that my motivation for working on specific training issues has taken a summer vacation. I could be working on fixing Tika's dogwalk up contact (which, remember, I vowed I'd work on during winter breaks--but noooo--), or Boost's serpentines, or Tika's bar knocking, or Boost's rear crosses, or nuthin'.

Well--I do keep practicing weave entries and exits because they're so easy to work on. And a little bit on keeping on driving into fast 2-on/2-off contacts. And just running 'em through tunnels, practicing an assortment of pushes, pulls, crosses, and so on, because it gives them exercise. And it's easy.

While world-class competitors are taking their time off to hone their skills, I'm picking up thousands of plums plummeting suicidally from my tree, watering my potted flowers, doing photography, giving agility training a rest.

Feels kind of nice, actually.

Although I wonder whether, when the next trial rolls around, I'll be kicking myself for simple things that I *coulda* *shoulda* been working on!

Meanwhile, here's some of what I did this last weekend:

Hunky men in skirts throwing heavy objects around a big grassy field. At the 27th annual Campbell Scottish Games. Waiiiiit-- big grassy field-- Competition-- Ring roped off-- Easy-ups set up around the outside for the competitors-- Judges on the field watching the current competitor-- Uh-oh, having agility flashbacks...
	Over the river and through the woods--starting out at the Sunol Regional Wilderness.
	My sister & her spouse set the pace through California's golden hills and scrub oak. And poison oak. And all that.
	Me (in teal) and sister contemplating our next move.
	The scenery from the Canyon View trail. Wayyy in the distance you can see the end of the parking lot whence we came. It was supposedly only a mile and a third to our outward destination, but it sure looks like more than that! And my pedometer said almost 5 miles when we got back.
	Some of the "canyon views" were awfully close to straight down off the trail. My sister said, "did I mention that I'm afraid of heights?" But we did fine. We met no one at all on the hiking trail that we took on the outward trip, all 2 (?) miles of it, maybe an hour and a half out with lots of stops on the steepish uphill parts.
	"Little Yosemite". A small rocky canyon with small waterfalls and pools. Dogs are allowed off-leash in the entire Regional Wilderness. I didn't take mine because I didn't want them chasing cattle and deer and running up to strange dogs in an overly enthused way all day, plus the following hours of combing out foxtails and ticks. But there were plenty of dogs on the main fire-road trail, like this one swimming in the creek.

(View the rest of my Sunol hike photos.)

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