sally needs her perimeter

 Saturday was another gorgeous bluebird day, warm into the low 40s again.  This is still too cold for me to MTB but H can tolerate it.  So off to the Moab Brand Trails we went, H's MTB in the back of the Crosstrek and Milton sitting on my lap in the shotgun seat.  (As an aside, we really need to get a hitch put on the car - it is neither comfortable nor safe for the dog to ride like that.)  We got to the parking lot around 10 a.m. - which really seems to be the winter launch time for us - and there were just a couple other vehicles there.

As H put his bike back together, Milton and I headed out for our usual loop: up and over the parking lot cutoff to Bar M, with a brief pause for M to say hello to the folks hanging out there, then south on Bar M to Circle O and out onto the rock.  Meanwhile, H did Lazy EZ - which was heavily populated by and trampled up by range cows in their winter pasture - to Rusty Spur to Bar M, out Bar B to the Arches border, back on Bar M to the northern terminus of Circle O and out onto the rock.  He met us there and then Milton decided he wanted to finish H's ride with him.  I traipsed back to the car solo and beat them by about five minutes: Milton wasn't breaking any speed records as his cumulative fatigue was kicking in.

The boys riding away

There were a few more vehicles in the lot as we changed into dry clothes, fed Milton the breakfast he hadn't eaten and noshed on our own sandwiches and beers.  One guy, parked a little further down in a small camper, had both a MTB and a dog about Milt's size.  As he rode in circles, warming up, she trailed along behind him and Milton thought he might go say hi.  He trotted up (the guy saw him coming and spoke to his dog but didn't wave us off) and got in line behind the other dog.  All went well for about ten feet, then the other dog told Milt on no uncertain terms that she did not appreciate his nose on her tail.  Milt skedaddled back to us and the guy called out with a shrug, "Sally needs her perimeter!"  We chuckled, because she had set her boundaries clearly, and Milt did not try approaching again, perfectly content to curl up on his towel and snooze in the winter sun.