A Little Jaunt to the River

Yesterday me and Braydon took Ares to the river. We loaded Ares up in the back of the Subaru and, with a backpack full of twine (in case we needed a longer leash), dog treats, camera, water bottle, and two hand towels, we were off. As we hiked down the path to the river, Braydon was full of praises for his new pup. He kept saying things like, "I need to take him more places!" and "He is going to be so much fun!" Little did he know he would be eating his words later on.
All was fine as we finally got to the bank of the river and splashed in, water up to our ankles. Ares stood in the water and lapped it up (yuck!). Then we had to cross in water that was about up to our knees and rising. This was a little too much for Ares and he went down under the water for a second. Thankfully Braydon had him on a leash and pulled him back onto his feet. After the initial plunge into the water, Ares decided he was not having any more of it! We had to travel down the river a bit to get to the spot where we could swim without touching and Ares did all he could to stay on land. When we finally got to our spot, we let Ares go and jumped in. Braydon's poor puppy tried to be brave and get in the water, but as it got up to his ankles, he would run back onto land, barking at us to make sure we did not leave him.
This was the point where Braydon grabbed a handful of mud and put it in my very thick hair. It was totally unwarranted... hehe. Try as I might, I could not get the sandy mud out of my hair! Anyways, as we were heading back, Braydon got tired of dragging Ares through the water and we decided to scale the side of the canyon and cut out some of our time. It was a lot higher than we had expected and I was half dead by the time we reached the top. Braydon, who is like one solid muscle, had Ares on his leash and kept calling him his "little motor" as Ares would help pull Braydon up the side of the hill.
When we finally got home I took my shower. Shampoo, shampoo, condition, condition, shampoo, condition to get the sand pebbles out of my hair! Oy! Even later that night I would scratch my scalp and get little grains of sand in my fingernails.
But, even after being eaten alive by the deer flies (which, thankfully, seemed to like Braydon's legs and neck more than mine), the harrowing climb up the canyon, and the stubborn dog, we will probably take Ares out again and teach him how to swim.