We had stopped at the highest point of this part of the Divide (the Atlantic Branch) to officially locate, and photograph, a benchmark.

Or, at least, that was why I had stopped there on Saturday of last weekend.

As far as the heeler sisters were concerned, it was just another place for a drag race. With nice, pebbly soils on the road.

From that high point, I was able to spot the other item I had been searching for. It would mean a little back-tracking, maybe a mile or so, but it was right there next to the road, on the steep side of the Divide.

We had driven right past it.

So, after reloading the heelers, and turning around on the narrow ridgeline, I drove us back west. And rolled to a stop at what I guessed was the right spot.

And it was.

The heelers burst out of the truck first, naturally, launching off of my left knee, drag racing back to the east. And I bailed off the south side of the Divide, camera in hand, to hide.

Our first game of hide and seek all day. Perhaps for many days. The sisters were certainly not expecting me to hide, and made this one of their longer races. I was nestled down, out of sight, long before I heard the excited yips up above me. The sure signs that they had discovered the empty truck, and were on the hunt.

I had the camera on, and at the ready, but I still missed it. The wonderful sight of the masked heeler running over to the southern lip of the Divide, seeing what I had turned back to find, and then leaping out into the air, face down and all four feet together, to land...

in a huge snowbank.

Yeah, it wasn't that warm out. Shirt-sleeve weather, but certainly not hot. And it's certainly not like we'd been missing snow, since there was snow covering the lawn at home just three days before.

But there is something about a snowbank that just brings out the fun. A place to run and tumble and dig and pounce, without fear of cactus stickers or pointy rocks. A place to cool off toes heated by rapid runs down dirt tracks.

A place to play.

Another unidentified flower, just a few meters from that benchmark on top of the Divide.