Wallet and Pet Friendly: Walking on the American River Bike Trail

Toward the end of most months, we’re sort of scraping to get by financially, but we still want to have fun and spend time with friends. So that my friend Jen and I can still catch up without having to spend any cash, we went for a walk on the American River Bike Trail one evening. Jen and I drove up to a little access point off of American River Drive—you take a right on Ashton Drive and another right on North River Way to get there.

We brought my pup Kahlua along for the ride, and she loved it. For the approximately 4-mile round-trip walk along what's called the Jedediah Smith Memorial Trail (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jedediah_Smith_Memorial_Trail), she was all about chasing lizards and bugs. (How she missed the deer and jackrabbits all over the place, we’ll never know.)

Since dusk comes early these days, going on a weekend is probably smarter than attempting to squeeze in an hour-long (or longer) walk after work. Unfortunately for us, we chose the after-work option. We returned to our access point right at dusk—and it was locked! We had just missed the ranger, so we had to hop the fence and figure out how to get Kahlua over. Luckily, we’re strong ladies (and Kahlua isn’t too heavy), so we managed to escape. It’s an activity we’ll definitely do again. We’ll just watch the clock more closely next time to avoid two adventures in one!

Posted by Jessica Mulholland on Thursday, October 29, 2009 | Permalink