I grew up flying with my father.
He had a small prop plane and he used to hop us between airfields like an old time bush pilot. Today, I relive the experience every time Whimsy races across a field to fetch a toy or chase a squirrel.
The truth is, though, my heart never belonged to the sky. It lives with feet firmly planted in the fields she runs across and in the dirt her paws dig up.
I love the feel of the soil when I plant seeds and I prefer the wind rush through branches and leaves rather than over aircraft wings.
Better than fly, I walk, stroll, and hike to know a place, and always with Whimsy to join me, although she is happier to leap across ditches and scamper among thickets.
The longest distance I ever trodded was 18 alpine miles over a pass high in the Andes mountains. Whimsy hoofed that trail with me but her longest was nearly twice that while I rode horseback.
She scrambled over boulders, crossed and recrossed a river, so that she was drenched and muddy, panting, and completely euphoric from the labors.
Finally reaching the campsite, she ate heartily and then chewed a raw beef bone left over from dinner. In the evening, I unclipped her TenderPaw Bedroll from across the rear of my horse’s saddle and spread it over the rough ground beside where we pitched the tent.
She loped over gingerly, turned herself around once, then twice like my father circling an airfield before landing, and then collapsed into a deep sleep.
Snooze soundly, Whimsy. Dream of trails and squirrels and field mice to chase. Rest your tender paws and get ready for another magical day tomorrow.
