A Morning Dog Walk Fogged Over by Nostalgia

We got out well before 6AM which is getting to be our normal walk these days.

Not really feeling like dealing with a dog with the morning traffic on The Drive, we stuck to the back streets in the neighborhood.  While it was much quieter, my faithful sidekick, Rack, seemed unsettled.

Normal, really, when you have a shy shelter refugee of a dog.

Getting out about 1/2 mile from the house, he started slowing down and sniffing the air.  The ears were twitching and trying to find something.  One pointing toward the front, one toward the back, Rack just wasn't interested in being out any more.

Ok, Boy, Lets head back!

We met up with one of the other dog walkers I see at the Dog Walk Hours, and realized it was getting later.  His dog also seemed a bit agitated and confused.   There was something going on on our Quirky Little Island.

Parting company, I headed Rack toward the house and the little park on the corner.

Coming closer, there was a sound.  It wasn't quite 6AM, so there shouldn't have been any construction going on.  Mechanized yard work couldn't start, legally, until 7AM.  This was the time of the morning where people got up and walked their dogs, not use leaf blowers to clear the driveway.

It sounded like a leaf blower on steroids, actually. 

Still too dark to see much other than deep blue cotton candy out over the ocean that began to catch the light from the sun rising over the Bahamas East of us, we both were looking for some sort of idea as to what was going on.

Checking the watch, 5:57AM was a bit early for drama, there had to be an explanation.

When I rounded that corner, I saw flashing lights and the sounds were getting louder.

"Lets go home, boy!" as Rack was digging his heels into the pavement and looking around from left to right trying to make sense of the sounds.

Then we both saw it.  I thought it was a large power company truck, but it turned out that it was a Mosquito Fogger.  He spotted us and cut the fogger as he passed by.  I immediately changed course to a street that the fogger hadn't been.  I didn't want to dance in the fog like we used to back when I was a child.

Silly kids.  Back In The Day, we would see a county truck back in Cherry Hill, NJ a couple times during the summer.   Whatever fog they used was so thick that the air was left a creamy white fog bank that you couldn't see from one side of the little residential street to the other.  Now that I'm older, I realize how foolish that was.

Rack and I started walking down the street behind my house.  It turned into a trot, then a jog.  Rack loved the exercise, I thought that "this isn't my sport" as we got as far down the block as we could. 

Luckily the fogger went his way and didn't come back.  We got to the front porch of my house with the weird high pitched leaf blower sound trailing off into the distance.

Happily, I walked into the safety of the house and the clear air of the Florida Morning with my dog and coffee on my mind.