I'm not getting paid enough for this... oh, wait

This wasn't at work, it was a walk to the woods on Thursday afternoon- a walk I have sworn won't be repeated until all this damn white stuff is gone.  But here, let me set the stage.  The day, Thursday, the time, 3 PM.  The temp is around 35, the path, down the street to the north entrance of the woods.  This includes going across four streets and hanging a left at the stop sign.  Our first indication of what was to come was at the street before the turn.  Where the others were nicely cleared, this crossing was buried under eighteen inches of piled up snow, with a tiny foot trail gouged over it.  Scrappy was halfway across the street by the time I started edging down the downslope.

Having survived that, we made the turn and (after a detour into the street after a far more blocked crossing halfway to the woods) we were faced with this...

 

 

 

 Yep, yet another treacherous crossing, at which Scrappy said, "Really?  Really?"

But, we made that barrier as well and made it into the woods, where I promptly lost track of what was trail and what was not.

 

 

 

 

 

 Scrappy seemed to be pulling me into the woods, but was actually leading me to the side trail- such as it was.

Remember last time we went?  How I complained about the icy ruts that made walking nearly impossible?  Well, same thing, with a four-inch snow covering.

 

Somebody dug a hole here.  Scrappy found it.

 

 

 This fellow shortly began to upbraid us for being so stupid as to take this path.

Once past this pile, we were on the level ground of Dead Tree Lane.  I did not verge off of pavement the rest of the walk- even though Scrappy fought tooth and nail to reach canal bank.

One good thing did come of it.  I finally admitted that my poor shoes- valiantly holding together almost without benefit of material- were in need of replacement.  They, along with the two pieces of carpet from work that I recently stuffed them with- are now enjoying retirement at the bottom of a trash can at Wal-Mart.