Desert Longing

I miss the desert. We still have lots of snow but it gets very warm everyday so the snow turns to mashed potatoes. Then, there is not much that's fun about slushy snow, as far as I'm concerned!

Shyla does think that "chilling out" on the snow is great. When it's warm outside, she loves to flop on her side and cool off by lying on the snow.

I think that she might have enjoyed some snow breaks back when we were in the desert. In deep canyons, it was hard to believe but some snow drifts did persist in the desert! However, we didn't take our mountain bike rides in those canyons so Shyla didn't have the chance to flop in the desert snow.

It is hard to imagine that there was snow on the ground fairly recently at a classic desert site like this one - but there was!

In the past, late winter and early spring has been my worst time of year for migraines. Thus, our March desert trip has often been marred by lots of migraine monster visits. This year, I had only one migraine for our whole trip - my recent realization that skimping on sleep was my primary migraine trigger has made a world of difference to me. I now only get 1-2 migraines every couple of weeks.

The one migraine I had in the desert was interesting because I think that Shyla knew it was coming on before I did. About ten minutes before the aura started, Shyla seemed very concerned about me. She nuzzled me - but I didn't "get the message". So then she lay nearby, keeping an eye on me. Very soon thereafter, the crazy light show started (the "aura"). I immediately took my meds, and the actual headache wasn't too bad. However, I wondered if I might do even better if Shyla could tell me to take my meds even sooner. I'm planning to look into this idea.

Shyla babysitting me just before my migraine aura

Shyla's extreme sensitivity has its downsides - like causing her to fear lots of things. However, it also means that she notices subtleties about us that another dog might not notice.

My headache didn't stop me from enjoying the sunset light (with dark sunglasses on). Ah - the light in the desert is so amazing! Here's R shortly before sunset. I tried to get lots of photos of him because he's going to be on "crate rest" for so long after his surgery.

And here's Shyla.  Chocolate fur was made to glow in red rock desert sunsets!

Shyla is a very patient model during our sunset photoshoots, and she's paid very well in the form of treats!

I'm already looking forward to our next trip to the desert!