In North Conway, where I often go for errands, dentist appointments and the like, there’s a couple really nice walks. The towns of Conway and North Conway are connected by the Saco River, and the flood plain is declared unsuitable for building, so it is public land, with trails and river access.

One way in is at the edge of the LL Bean parking lot.

That’s the LL Bean parking lot out there past the trees.

So while Bean’s itself is “service dogs only,” they do provide access to this great network of trails. Between two appointments last week, Chico and I stopped for a walk.

Down a little hill…

to flood plain level. One Sumac is starting to turn.

At the bottom of the hill there are a couple choices of path, a loop we’re familiar with and another path we’ve never taken. So, that day, we took it.

It passes a little swampy area.

Chico was, as usual, stoked to be someplace he never smelled before.

So he trotted right along.

Unless there was something to sniff off the trail, then he disappeared for a moment and had to catch up.

Not thrilled to have me in his path taking a picture.

But that made me wonder what the trail looks like to a dog of Chico’s size.

There’s not a lot to see from down here. Acute hearing and smell can tell you a lot more from down here than your eyes can.

One of Chico’s gifts to me has been making me look at familiar things and places with new needs, thus new eyes. Finding this walk made me realize that I had never before looked beyond the parking lot of that store, even in dozens of visits over a number of years. Oh, Chico, what else have you got to show me?