A Skijor With Banks & His New Lady Sage

Yesterday my friend Amy and I decided to finally get our dogs together and go skijoring.  Skijoring is something new for both of us with our pups.  It's essentially skiing while your dog tows you from a line attached to your hips via a climbing harness or something similar.  Banks and I have made 3 good attempts at this.  He pulls hard...when he wants to.  And he stops well...when he wants to...sometimes unexpectedly.  You can imagine some of the dangers of this activity, particularly when you have classic cross country skis that don't have a metal edge.  It makes maneuvering and stopping on the fly a bit more difficult.  Regardless, we take the risk so we can spend the day outdoors with our dogs and hopefully tire them out a little in the process.  Both Banks and Sage are new to skijoring, so they are a bit...remedial.  They're both a little over 2 so they have alot of energy and alot of "puppy" in them.  For the most part we did well.  They both stayed on the trail and didn't try to pull us into the woods.  About 2/3 through our ski we stopped to let them off their lines to play togther.  Once we got them hooked back up we headed off down the trail toward the parking lot.  Somehow...I'm still not quite sure how, they got their lines tangled and we ALL went down.  I ended up falling backward on my fanny pack (yes, I said fanny pack) that had 2 water bottles and my 35mm camera in it.  The camera is OK and the water bottles are OK, don't worry.  I, however, am now 5'9" as opposed to my normal 6'.  One of the water bottles stabbed me in the right flank and I'm having a little trouble standing up straight with the new muscle spasms.  So tonight, as you all check out the pics from the day, I'm nursing a gnarly bruise on my right flank.  It's icey hot, advil, a heating pad and a glass of wine tonight.  At least Banks is exhausted and resting comfortably... ;)