Day 14: Petrified Forest National Park

Flagstaff, AZ to Albuquerque, NM

This is a little late-the hotel wireless internet was not working last night.  But, as you can probably guess, yesterday we went to the Petrified Forest and Painted Desert.  There is not much narrative to go with this so here are the pictures I'm sure you have been waiting for!

Petrified wood

 Enjoying the trails

More wood

Cool rock formation

It was super windy, can you tell?

Day 13: Route 66

Lindsay, CA to Flagstaff, AZ

Mostly today was driving, but we did take one scenic byway through Oatman, AZ and Historic Route 66.  There is a herd of "wild" burros that live in Oatman.  They actually are pretty tame as all the tourists feed them.  As you can see, they hang out on the roads and wait for the cars.

This one practically climbed in our car looking for a handout.

They are pretty much all over town and again, not that wild.

Here is Legend, getting her kicks..

According to Wikipedia this stretch of Route 66 was one of the places that inspired scenes in the Pixar movie Cars.

 It's hard to tell in the picture but you can actually see the interstate in the distance (the little white lines are trucks), just like in the movie.

Day 12: Sequoias!

Today we set out on a mission to find giant trees. Our first stop was Sequoia National Forest.  We drove up the very twisty, foggy road to the find the groves recommended by the ranger that were accessible by road this time of year.  Well turns out when you drive to where the road ends you still have to hike some to find all the big trees.  And guess what...the trails are covered in snow.  So we ended up stopping at a nearby campground in the forest which was quite scenic and had some Sequoias so the trip was not a total waste.  The mountains were dreary and drizzly today so lots of my photos need "help" and I'll try and post more later when I get home and have photoshop.

 Oh look, a log for Legend to pose on!

So then we drove back down the winding, foggy mountain road and headed up north a few hours to Sequoia National Park.  Once there we drove up another winding, foggy mountain road.  As an added bonus there were road construction delays on this one.  Here is Legend waiting for us to take our turn through the construction zone.

But finally!  The road through the Giant Forest...

This is General Sherman, the largest tree in the world.  It's 36 feet in diameter at the base.

 More big tree photos.  It's hard to take a good picture of them.  If you are far enough away to get the whole tree in the shot, they don't seem as big.  But if you are up close it's hard to get enough of the tree to show anything worthwhile  You really have to see them for yourself but I did my best.  The fog adds an interesting element to some of the pictures.

And we saw a few friends along the way

Now, I'm not usually one to disrespect the dead, but this was just a little too funny to pass up...looks like he partied too hard...RIP Squirrel.

On a lighter note, some California wildflowers.

And lastly we stopped at a roadside park on our way back to the hotel.

 She was more interested in the water than posing.

Day 11: More Driving

We did one final check this morning and it seems all of the travel restrictions had been lifted for the Sierra Nevada region we were wanting to travel.  So we were able to end up crossing the mountains after all.  But we decided that instead of going to Yosemite we would skip that and continue on further south and go to Sequoia National Forest instead.  There were two reasons for this.  One-it's closer to our next destination and two-in a national forest you can take your dog on the trails but in a national park they pretty much have to stay in the car or the parking areas.

The drive here through the mountains and rolling ranch country was beautiful but we didn't stop much.  We got a late start since we needed to get some laundry done before we left Tahoe.  But here are a few pics from along the drive.  This is by far not the best mountain view we passed, but it's where we happened to stop.

Day 10: Tahoe

If you have not been to Lake Tahoe I suggest you go.  This is the best place we have been so far and the one we would make an effort to go back to. Except we would go in the summer when it's not cold and snowy.

We did a little shopping this morning and then took a cruise on the lake.  The views from the boat were great and we got a close up look at Emerald Bay and the only island in Lake Tahoe-which is really not much more than a big rock.

This is the island

The view from in the bay

But the views from the drive above the bay were even more spectacular.

We wanted to go hiking but in addition to all the parks and recreation areas being closed for the season, the trails were covered in snow.  Like two feet of snow, as you can see below.  This is the deepest snow I have ever been in!

Legend didn't see any problem with this though, she was light enough that she didn't sink too deep and was having a fantastic time sprinting around while we were getting soaking wet up to our knees!

We stopped at this beach on the way back to our hotel.  Technically dogs weren't allowed, but it's closed for the season and we saw several other dogs while we were there so I guess no one really cares as long as it's winter.  

 Poor Legend had now been posed on every rock and log west of the Mississippi I think!  She's a pretty good sport though.

Our plan after this was to go to Yosemite but it looks like we will be skipping that too.  Although some of the park is open, I think most of the hiking trails are closed.  Plus the roads to get there currently have travel restrictions due to snow.  Evidently it's still winter here.  Who knew?  It's 90 at home.

Day 9: Nationals Round 3 and Wrap-up

The hybrid course today was pretty challenging and we had a few almost mishaps but did mange to run clean again today!  This gave her a total of 295/300 pts and moved her up in the standings significantly.  We ended up 69th out of 235 twenty inch dogs.  I'm more than pleased with that result.  She really did the best she could and I could not have asked her for more.

We stayed to watch the challengers round and the finals both of which were so much fun to watch.  No pomeranians make the finals though, maybe we can do something about that someday...

Anyway, I thought I'd share a few of my thoughts on the weekend.  The trial site was pretty nice.  Except for ring 4.  It was dark and dusty and stuffed over in the area with the inside stall crating.  It was not even as nice as most of the arenas local trials are held in and certainly didn't give you a "championship" feel.  The PA system was terrible and depending on where you were sitting you could only make out about half of what was said if you were lucky.  Also, we were relatively unimpressed with Reno as a city.  It's not somewhere we would go back to.  I thought the courses for rounds 1 and 2 were pretty straightforward but the hybrid round was definitely more challenging.  Also the challengers and finals rounds looked like they presented some definite challenges even though I didn't get to run them.  The vendors were so-so.  There were a few with some good stuff and unique products but I was sort of expecting there to be more.  But I guess it's good there not more, since I spent all of my budgeted vendor money on what was there! And as I mentioned before the clean run ribbons could have been nicer.

Well, that's all I can think of right now.  We are spending a day or two in Lake Tahoe now, which so far seems super nice and we are looking forward to seeing more of it tomorrow.

Living In Fast Forward CD, RE, MX, MXJ, NF, CGC

My "Hillbilly Rockstar"