Poodle dog vigilante

Oh most heinous of 3o days of hiking. Today started out like any other... hiking with optimism and high adventure but today was way too vigilant. We walked through the worst poodle dog bush on the entire trail. We were up to our eyeballs in it. Now Dirty Girl had the most brilliant idea - she would prune the PD as she walked through it with the pruning shears she bought in Wrightwood. Well and dandy but she didn't expect to be walking through a PD jungle. This stuff smelled like dope and sounded like a herd of  chihuahuas stuffed in a Mini Cooper with the heat on. Every time she cut a stalk she heard a bark and started to hallucinate. The going was interminabley slow. Tidy Camper took up the rear end becoming the eyes in the back of her head. Remember this was done with a pack on. Quite unwieldy when  you are trying to be a ballerina performing pirouettes and plies. TC might say, "Don't stand up. There is a branch above you" at which point DG would have to do some kind of acrobatic maneuver to move forward. She had on pretty yellow dish washing gloves to protect her hands but that was it. What she really needed was a hazmat suit and some oxygen. At the end of what felt like an all day  vigil she was done with being Miss Nice Guy and wanted to lay down and have some tea but this was not to be. She had retired the shears and gloves into a plastic bag and had 2 miles to go when  another poisoness plant made it's appearance. Lovely and green it glistened with fresh oil, poison oak so fresh you wanted to scream bloody murder which is what DG did. She almost called for a helicopter to rescue her. By the way did we tell you that Topo was walking the road to avoid this poisoness mess? It was an option not  chosen by the two other idiot hikers. They wanted just a little more challenge than just hiking to Canada. The day ended and there was no water to wash their clothes. We will keep you updated on any skin eruptions that occur.