Urban Tracking (88)

On Friday, April 20th, Nadine and I met at Game Farm Park.  The program called for a marked track with intentional contamination. 

It starts in the upper right (black line) my contamination is in dotted yellow.  The weather was sunny and bright, with light swirly breezes and dewy grass.  It was supposed to be aged to 1:15, but ended up 2 hours old.  

Gimme didn't seem to notice my first crosstrack and found the eyeglass case easily.  She made the first turn, didn't show signs of noticing the crosstrack, did the second turn and found the ball cap.  She ignored the next crosstrack and then it got interesting.

Since the track was supposed to be marked, I was expecting to see Nadine's larger flag in the distance.  I couldn't see it up under the tree line and only saw my own smaller crosstrack flag.  I'd forgotten I crossed this leg twice and rationalized that not all of Nadine's flags were different from mine.  Gimme sniffed about six feet of this cross track and then tried to pull me down the actual track.  Since I didn't see the corner flag, I pulled her back and encouraged her down my cross track.  Bad Mom!!! 

Nadine stopped us, bringing us back to a known place on the real track.  I encouraged Gimme to "search for it" and she said, "I already showed you, why should I think you'll believe me now?"  I promised to believe her and encouraged her again.  When she lined out on the track I said the ritual question, "Is the the good track?"  She stopped and gave me a look of disgust.  I swear she could teach classes for teenagers about eye-rolling.  Then she went on and did a lovely job on the rest of the track, finding a cotton glove and a sock before the final glove.

I didn't put a crosstrack on the last leg.  Instead I came in at an angle and paralleled the track for 20 feet from about 6 feet away.  I thought this might be an interesting challenge.  She showed no sign of noticing my cleverness.

To ensure I don't lead Gimme astray again, I have printed all of my google earth images and put them in document protectors.  This way Nadine and I will have a better reference while we are planning our tracks.  Also it will be a handy way to draw a quick version of Nadine's track with my crosstracks.