It's not that important, or I draw the line at fresh tar.

Have I mentioned we (the Nice dog and me) have walked over three thousand miles together. We've rolled to the top of Pike's Peak in Colorado and been forced down by heavy winds from Mount Washington in New Hampshire. We have run across bridges in the wee hours of mornings and rolled along Wall Street in New York City. When I went on my first long journey I stubbornly wanted to walk every inch from louisville Kentucky to Pittsburgh Pennsylvania. At one point on that journey I found myself on the top of a hill in Ohio with storm clouds blackening the sky and wind that lifted the World off the ground as I held on. No shelter for a quarter of a mile all I could do was keep the World from blowing away, I couldn't move. Just then a young man stopped with a pick-up truck and offered a ride. At first I refused out of pride but the wall cloud was rushing toward us and I finally took the ride. While we drove fast away from the storm I watched the clouds overtake us. The wind then tore the world off the back of the truck sideways ripping the fabric and the original laising straps off the World. I found out the next day that a tornado had touched down on that ridge where I stood. My stubbornheadedness, my pride was taken down a notch and I learned a lesson.
Today I walked for a few miles along the roadway where the DOT was resurfacing and had applied a swath of tar to bind the roads edge. The tar was dry and hard in the morning hours but as the sun grew high the fresh binding tar coated the soles of my new boots and though Nice(the dog) walked in the grass most of the time his feet also picked up tar and grains of sand and tiny pebbles. This will not do.
The road work is going on for another fifteen miles and the closest bike trail north is seven miles up and the tar goes on for another fifteen. I came into Minnesota at the border to Iowa almost a month ago and have walked more miles than many walk in a year during that time. For the dog's sake, for the love of dog, I will skip this stretch of road and start off in the morning on tar free shoulders.
Think what you will...I love my dog.