Up Buena Vista, Again

Seeing as the weather had warmed up considerably, Rio and I decided to take advantage of it and go for another long walk.

We went up Buena Vista again. You can read about our first trip here.

It was a bit easier this time because we had no snow and ice to slip on.

Looking down Buena Vista about half way:


Looking up the street:


We stopped by Joy's place to see her cats but she wasn't home. :-(

So we went to see Gwen and Henry, who invited us in for a glass of water. Sadly I didn't think to take their picture until after we had left.

We stopped by Fineview lookout to check the fine view of Pittsburgh.



You can actually see our house in this picture if you know where to look.



Allegheny General Hospital is in the foreground.



This cute cottage is for sale. It comes with a historical marker and a fine view.





Google maps says we walked 3 miles in 1 hr and 50 minutes. It fails to mention elevation changes!


Map:
View Larger Map

Why Am I Out In This Weather?

It was a cold, snowy day.

So why was I out?



Oh yeah. Love.

File Under: It's a Small World

Rio and I were exploring more of our neighborhood this week. We went up a street where there is a caterer. A woman coming out of the door exclaimed that Rio looked just like her neighbor's greyhound, Smokin Dixie.

I said that Smokin Dixie is Rio's brother.

Small world.

Discoverd on Walks: Ice Sculpting

We saw a bunch of guys hanging out in front of the Children's Museum early on a cold Saturday morning. What could they be up to?



Ice sculpting!



We went back later in the day but they must have moved the pieces inside the museum. All that was left were the cast off ice scrapings.

This Time a Trot

I thought I did a bone head thing by tilting the camera, but Picasa saved my bacon.

Run Rio (and Grant)

Limping Bad/Good News

Rio started limping very badly on Feb. 14. It was obvious that he was in pain. He wasn't really into taking long walks. He had no energy. No pep. On our walk Tuesday afternoon I had had enough of watching him limp so I made an appointment to see the vet the next day.

Greyhounds are prone to bone cancer and I was afraid this limp was really bad news. We had seen a PBS show on "Why We Love Cats and Dogs" and one part was about a couple whose german shepherd had a leg removed due to cancer. So cancer was on my mind.

Rio and I went to the vet, who is about a 45 minute drive northwest of here in Beaver, PA. Dr. Doug examined Rio's left front leg to see if he could determine what was hurting Rio. Rio reacted when Dr. Doug pressed his left shoulder. So they took him in to get an x-ray.

Dr. Doug came in and said the good news was that the x-ray didn't show anything. The bad news was that the x-ray didn't show anything. So, while Rio doesn't have cancer, or a torn ligament, or broken bone, we still don't know why he is in pain.

Dr. Doug is a holistic vet. He recommended we start with a homeopathic remedy for three days and, if that didn't work, we would go to traditional pain meds for him.

We gave Rio his first dose of 6 tiny grains that look like sand on Wednesday night. Amazingly by Friday morning he was so full of energy he was dragging me around the park on our morning walk. I worked up a huge sweat in 17F weather. It made a believer out of me.

So far Rio's back to his perky self with the tiniest of limps.

A side story is just as we were finishing up the vet appointment I heard a commotion in the hallway. It turns out that just outside of the clinic a woman traveling 65 MPH in a 35 MPH zone clipped the back end of a car, cut a telephone pole in half, went through a chain link fence, down a small hill and flipped on the roof of the car. Amazingly the woman and her passenger walked out of the accident due to the fact they were wearing seat belts.

Good news all around.

Just after the accident. You can see the car just above the picture of the dog.



Moving the telephone pole.



The car.