I almost ran over a possum.

10:20 last night, I was driving along my winding country road when I spotted this thing wobbling around in the center of my lane. It was a possum, and it appeared to be oblivious to my approaching Jeep. I flashed by before it could react, I don't think it even noticed. Don't worry, I did not flatten it.

Anywho, the Jeep has been giving me some problems lately.
First, the rear window exploded, which I have mentioned before.
The next problem was the oil filter. The brand new oil filter. I changed the oil the other day and was sure to do everything correctly. But the oil filter decided not to cooperate, and when I started down the driveway the oil filter blew up! I wasn't aware until I was about 100 feet down the road and smelt burning oil and looked at my oil gauge. It's not supposed to read 0 pressure, so I pulled over real quick and examined the underside of the jeep which was dripping the last bits of oil left in the engine.
Thankfully I noticed it right away instead of halfway to GP or I might have a permanently broken Jeep on my hands.
So, I had my boss drive me to the auto parts store (there are perks to having an amazing couple as your bosses, and living right behind them) and picked up a new filter and some more oil. When I got back and took the broken filter off I saw that not only had the seam come undone, but the gasket snapped too! Talk about bad quality control. (For those of you who are interested, it was a FRAM Extra Guard PH16 filter.)
The new filter works just fine, and the Jeep seems to be running good now.

I saw this on the highway yesterday. I was really hoping it would crash so I could grab some Ninkasi.

In other news...

Remember when I mentioned some exciting news coming up? Well, it's here!
Yesterday I got up at 2AM and began the 6 hour drive to Seattle. Seeing as there was road construction, car crashes, and heavy traffic, my 6 hour drive turned into a 7 hour drive. No worries, I got to Sea-Tac (the airport) just fine and on time. Only to get confused as to where I was supposed to be going. So I asked a few employees, who all gave me different answers, and got myself totally confused and lost many times over until I found the right location. Which, if I had just been given correct directions from the start, was incredibly easy to find.

Anywho, I found the cargo pickup place and talked to one of the people inside. I was told to have a seat while they prepared some paperwork for me to take over to customs. This took an hour. When I got the paperwork I had to drive to another building (which I was given correct directions for, so I found it easily) so I could chaty with the customs agent.
This guy was definitely an odd one. He apparently did not understand a direct answer, and confused me yet again with his strange manner of speaking. He started to get all trivial with me and questioned the purpose of my package, and was contemplating labeling it as "commercial" which would have cost me an extra fee that I was not supposed to be getting. After looking over my paperwork for a while, he stamped it with his seal of approval and told me "Your story matches up with the paperwork so you are good to go."
Whatever that means... Strange guy.

So back to the cargo pickup building I go, with my stack of paperwork and official seals, to retrieve my package. After another 10 minutes I go into a warehouse and through a cadge door that you have to ring a bell to get through (that some guy showed me since I obviously did not notice it) and handed my papers to yet another person. He looked them over then directed me to a crate sitting a few yards away on the ground. We chatted for a brief moment about the crate's contents, then I picked up my package and carried it to my Jeep.

Pup!

I headed back down south towards Portland. As usual, the heavy traffic, road construction, and car crashed foiled my attempt at making a speedy getaway from Seattle and lengthened my drive by another hour.

I eventually made it to Portland where I met up with Lobo the Buhund's owner at a spiffy off-leash dog walking/hiking area. It was pretty awesome, and I did not take any pictures. I was too busy talking and trying to get the pup to stop harassing Lobo.
Lobo is a super awesome dog, I totally want a Buhund now.

After the meetup we got back on the interstate and into more heavy traffic, road construction, and car crashes. Seriously, I have never seen that many wrecks in rapid sucsession on that stretch of I-5 before. It was really obnoxious.

We stopped at many rest stops once we were out of the chaos to stretch out legs, get a drink, and have a snack.

We got back to RR around 10:30 last night.

Anywho, say hello to Katana, a 5 month old Hokkaido Ken from Japan.

He is very "mine", everything is his and anything another dog has he wants. He is incredibly similar to Conker at that age, so at least I know how to combat his problem. He seems to be worried that the other dogs will take his things, even if he is not currently playing with them.
There has been minimal snark between him and the Shibas, and only one firm correction from Juneau when he tried to take her toy. He got the message right away.

He is quite affectionate, loves to be pet and cuddle. He is interested in new people and accepts their scratches, and wants to meet new dogs as long as they are not huge. He does seem to have a bias towards Spitz types though, he appears to do a bit better with them than other dog types.

Katana has quite a set of lungs in him, and is quick to let you know that he WANTS OUT OF THIS CRATE RIGHT NOW! But will chill out soon when it is time to sleep. Funnily enough, he puts himself to bed in the outside crate whenever he wants to take a nap, but don't you dare close that door lest you open the hellgates!

When Katchi matures I am going to do a few health checks on him. If he's in good shape, he will be used as a stud for the HANA Project run by the Hokkaido Association of North America.


Anybody who wants to import a dog from Japan, I highly recommend you talk with Shigeru Kato (his official website is Japan Dog Export.) He took care of all the stuff for me overseas, and is a pretty cool guy. He is very knowledgeable with the Nihon Ken and can help you find the right dog or pup to import.



Anyways, since there is no longer just one Nihon Ken, and since the Girls are mine now, I have decided to rename the blog. It is now called Rogue Valley Wild, since I live in the Rogue Valley and the Rogue River is often called the Wild and Scenic Rogue. And also since I live right on the edge of human development and wilderness. And I basically live in a campground.
A dorky name but that's how I do things.

Travel Day

It's here, the day Conker and I fly back to Oregon. We are just waiting for check-out time to arrive so we can hitch a ride on the shuttle to the airport and sit around for an hour before check-in, then do some more sitting around, some flying, a lot more sitting around (got a 4 hour layover that wasn't there before... SO happy about that) and a bit more flying before we make the 30 minute drive back to GP.

So last night Conker, as usual, was up every few minutes barking (softly) at noises outside. This is normal for him in a hotel room, he's done it every time we've stayed in one. Unfortunately for me that means I get less sleep, but at least I got enough that I woke up before my alarm went off instead of after.
I gave Conker a long, long brushing and pulled many puppies worth of undercoat off him. Which means he's shedding right now, and it'll only get much much worse once we are in Oregon with the warmer temperatures. He looks, feels, and even smells a lot better now since he has not had a good brushing since like, the first week of being in Alaska.
After the brushing session, I gave him a very thorough massage which he completely enjoyed, so much so that he was making these funny sounds that he only does when he's very relaxed and comfortable. That made me happy to see him finally enjoying some good one-on-one time with me.

And that Amish Mafia show I watched last night? Freakin awesome.

Anywho, looking forwards to getting back to GP. I'm sure Conker will be very glad to be back home, Juneau and Sasha might not be as happy as him since he does annoy them somewhat (a lot, actually), but since I am part of the Conker package, I think they will be fine with that 'cause I'll take them hiking with me again.

Anyways...

Conker and I are booked to boogie at 2:20 tomorrow afternoon. We spent one last stress-filled sleep-deprived night at the kennel then got a quiet yet quite Republican (Rush Limbaugh was on the radio) and uncomfortable ride to Anchorage where we were dropped off at the airport then caught a shuttle to our hotel. (Intentionally done that way.)

I dinked around on the free wifi for a bit before taking Conker to the (rather expensive) vet to get a health certificate so he can fly tomorrow. The vet tech and veterinarian were very nice people and just LOVED (and also knew where it was from) Conker's name. He was not so fond of them but they still adored him anyways. The vet noticed his right luxating patella in a snap, which I told her I am fully aware of, and she reconfirmed that it is not severe. The vet tech was surprised to learn that I was also fully aware of how severe the heartworms are in the States and that since I am going to (returning) to them that Conker should be put back on (though he was never really taken off of) preventives. She was also surprised to learn that I happened to be going to one of (if not the) worst areas for heartworm infections in Oregon. But she was glad that I was not only aware but had already taken the steps to avoid Conker getting infected.
They were impressed with Conker's weight (I admitted that his condition wasn't as good as it's been before, he lost a lot of muscle mass over the past couple months much to my extreme annoyance) and complimented me on keeping him trim, especially since his knees are bad.
It was the fastest vet visit I have ever had, which was good for Conker since he was already stressed from the hour and a half ride in a cold crate in the snow-filled back of N's truck down to Anchorage, as well as the 3 mile hour long walk along the ice covered sidewalks of the city as traffic rushed past a bit close for comfort.
They were incredibly nice people, fast yet thorough, and even though we were never going to see them again, I could tell that they cared about Conker's well-being. That was pretty cool.

(Holy crap a TV show just came on that's about the Amish mafia... Watching this for sure!)

After the vet visit we walked (slower than before, my feet hurt and it got 10x slicker during that brief visit) back to the Puffin Inn where I left Conker for a short moment and hopped over to Mc Donalds where I picked up a McKinley Mac, an Angus with bacon-and-something burger, a large Diet Coke, and large coffee (with creams and sugars!) for myself and...

A double cheeseburger for Conker. Yes, giving my dog (who has a history of digestive issues) a double cheeseburger the night before a full day of airport madness was probably not the best idea in the world, but it was only $2, Conker had not eaten anything all day (nor had I, N and J refused to give me food) and I was greatly lacking in the give-a-shit department. Which I still am.
He also got some french fries which he just adored, moreso than the cheeseburger, oddly enough.

I took a nice long relaxing shower as Conker snuffled around our rather small but very cozy hotel room (seriously, it's barely bigger than my old trailer, but I like it) looking for more french fries, and nosing his head into the shower every few mintues to check-in with me. (Funny fact: If the shower has a curtain instead of a hard door, Conker will regularly stop by and brave the indoor rain for a moment to be with me, but if it's a solid door he wants nothing to do with the shower.)

Well, it's 6:30, the Amish Mafia are, mafiaing, and I am beginning to hear the calls from the frosties at the Wendy's across the street. (Remember what I said about the give-a-shit department?)  I might jump the road and get one in an hour or so.


I might write another update tomorrow morning before we jet (or propeller?) but will save the explanation post for when we are back home and comfortable again.

Homeward Bound

Conker and I are leaving this fucking place A.S.A.P.  More information coming soon to an internet near you.

Travel day looms near

I gave almost all of my meat away today. It's kinda sad, I have no more meat for my dogs (sparing some treats I'd made and a couple meals for the Girls) and thus feeding the dogs has suddenly become really boring. But those people I gave the meat to looked like they really could have used some free meat, so it's all good. (Everything they got was human-grade stuff.)

Conker still hates the crate, I don't think he'll ever actually like it.

I am just about packed for Alaska and only have a few things left to do. The freezer is defrosting, the trailer is almost cleaned out (needs a good vacuuming), I cleaned my stuff out of Leo (my Jeep), and I am just about packed. Only a few odd things left to do here and there.

Oh, I found something out recently.
If you are a regular reader of this blog, you might know about something Conker creates I call Deathfarts. Well, I have found a culprit! Raw lamb. I have been adding lamb to his food for the past few days and the Deathfarts have been about overwhelming. When I remove the lamb, the Deathfarts go away. So, no more raw lamb for Conker.

Anyways, I am excited to go to Alaska, but not looking forwards to traveling. I really hate airports, they ruin the fun of flying (if there aren't a million people in the plane) and stress the crap out of me. The fact that I'm going to have a dog, my dog, with me on this trip is even worse. I already stress enough about him, so this should be oh so interesting.


I'm probably not going to have internet access (actually I will, but I most likely won't be blogging) for a short while after I get to Alaska, so the blog won't update for a little bit after Thursday.

It's Monday!

Nothing special really.

Today I gave the Girls some raw turkey yumms, since I am attempting to clear out my freezer before I leave.

Necks, gizzards, hearts, livers, and some pork meat. I took this hasty picture then promptly smashed the everloving shit out of those necks.

Then I took Conker to the vet to get a health certificate so he can fly.

He was NOT happy to be there. He was weighed (25.3 pounds! The heaviest he's ever been.) and examined. I also picked up some Frontline since the racing kennel is concerned about me bringing fleas up on Conker, so I got the preventive just to be sure. The vet also advised me to give him a really good and soapy bath before I put on the Frontline. But I really doubt there are any fleas, I've been flea-combing him every day since I landed this gig and haven't found any yet.
He's already been wormed with Panacur and got a heartworm pill today so he's good on those too.

Then, we walked home (since we walked there) and I fed Conker some Honest Kitchen (not sure what it was, I think Keen and Verve) with some random assortment of ground meats, which he loved.

I've been feeding him in this plastic kennel so he'll get used to being in one, but of course he hates it and if I close the door he starts to bitch about it. And instead of standing normally like any other dog, he curls himself up in the doorway so he's in the least amount of the kennel as possible.
He's such a dork.

Chicken, it's eeevil

Conker has decided that most chicken is EVIL. I don't know why, but for many months now he just will not eat bone-in chicken happily, or at all in most cases. So I have decided to only feed him chicken that is both bone-free and skin-free, since chicken skin is eeevil too. Flat yellow things are eeevil as well. Strange dog.
Oh, he also isn't very fond of the crate. Which he needs to get used to, because the both of us are going to Alaska.

Yep, Conker and I are going to Alaska. Soon. On Thursday.

WHY, you might be wondering, are Conker and I going to Alaska, of all places, right before winter? Well, I got a job as a dog handler for a sprint racing kennel. That's right! A sprint racing kennel! How random is that?

Chasing plastic bags

Juneau thought this was the SHIT.

Conker thought it was pretty badass too.

Bend

The dogs and I are going to Bend today. We are going for a dog event, and to go to the Badlands. Will be there for a few days, not too long since I do have to come back and do some things around the house, and I can't just leave the rabbit alone in the front yard for a week. (Everybody else is leaving on Sunday.)

Conker and Juneau will get to chase some plastic bags attached to a cable. Wish them luck!

From Soggy Southern Oregon to Soggy Southern Washington

Remember how I mentioned that I might possibly be moving up north? Well, it's not possibly anymore.
Conker and I are packed up and headed to Washington! (tomorrow)

We will be living just north of the Columbia River in a small city (three times the size of GP) that is often referred to as "The Couve" but I HIGHLY doubt I'll call it that. That name is... Not to my liking. GP is a pretty stupid name but that one is stupider and I will probably come up with a different alias than "The Couve" for the new place of residence.

Speaking of which... It looks like this.

But will be parked at an actual house, where I will be spending most of my time. The trailer is just for sleeping and minimal living in. It's where all my junk will be so it won't intrude upon my Grandma's house, and so I can have a little "getaway" place if need be. Also, I don't know what Grandma's attitude towards Conker in her house will be, so the trailer will be his little haven if he gets kicked out.

I have lived with this particular Grandma before and know my way around this "new" living place quite well. So nothing about it will really be new, except Conker and the trailer.

Speaking of Conker... He is being picky about food again (turkey and gizzards), and will be getting a good bath and nail trimming so he appears somewhat decent for Grandma. I hope he doesn't start off by barking at her, but that's probably what he'll do.


Anywho, that's it for now! Next update will probably be in a few days.

Back in Oregon!

Both drives were uneventful.  Both times we stopped at my Mom's friend's house somewhere in central California (Turlock) and both times I gave the resident dog, Pepper, an adorable Lab-Springer? mix a bully stick in return for letting Conker stay in her house. 

As you may have read, my point-and-shoot died and I have been using Mom's camera which while it is functional, I do not like it's huge lack of options so the picture quality has dropped. The dang thing also rearranged the order of pictures.

Anyways... Here are some pictures of the trip.

Conker being "comfortable" in the car on the ride down.  It's quite hard to get pictures of Conker while in the car since I am normally driving, and I hate the flash so I never use it.

Conker was put in the backyard (much to his displeasure, it was 65 out a lot of the time) due to him being a beggar when food was present.  He also decided to be a douche and boycotted doing his stuff on the rocks so I had to walk him around for an hour or more so he could find a suitable spot to deposit his... goodies... instead of doing it in the yard.

On several of our frequent daily walks we ditched the sidewalks and crushed pebble pathways that twisted through urbania to explore the stretch of unfenced desert between the housing development and the I-10.  These adventures would have been off-leash if it were not for the proximity of the interstate to the development, as you can see in the background of the above image, so I kept Conker leashed in order to prevent him from becoming a Shiba-splat on the asphalt. 
On one of these excursions Conker excavated a ground squirrel or other rodent-type critter's home.

Conker was bored a lot of the time since us humans were often doing other things that did not involve him.  He at one point ignored me completely in favor of laying in the cool shade (since it was, you know, a boiling 70 degrees that day) near the sculpture thing I made for my Grandparent's 50th anniversary. 
And much to my surprise, he only barked at golfers once despite them and their carts being very visible from the backyard.

This post would not be complete without a picture of at least one of Conker's meals.

So here it is. Christmas food was some Honest Kitchen topped off with raw turkey fat, gizzard and heart.  Christmas also marks the day I began raw/home-cooking/alternatives to kibble-feeding Conker.
But that was not enough for the crafty Shiba!   He jumped up onto the table and took a whole turkey leg and made a mess of it on the carpet.  And since he'd touched most of it, he was allowed to keep it after I removed the bone and weird stringy things.

We dinked around in the backyard with Conker's only real Christmas present from me quite a bit.  It's now his new favorite toy since it can do everything. (Kudos if you can guess what it is.)

We met Taro, who is the cutest little dude I have ever seen ever, and his friends Rinji and Mika at a spiffy place called Arizona Dog Sports where the Shibas ignored each other and the humans for most of the time.  Despite Conker being a butthead, it was a lot of fun and I was able to get him to go over a few jumps and through a tunnel which was surprising for me.

We went on a 7 mile hike in the White Tank Mountains the day before we left AZ.  It was a load of fun since it was a real hike with rocks and scrambling and stabbings by cactus (which will be further written about later) and I wish we could have gotten in about three more of these but that just didn't happen.
Conker really enjoyed this and thankfully didn't throw out either of his knees on the rocks.

Conker was not pleased to be in the car again on the way back.  He was good about it though, and slept most of the way and was generally a good dog.

Funny thing.  My Grandparents like Conker so much (despite me telling them that he was not his full self at their house) that they wanted to keep him!  They want to get a dog soon and offered Conker a new home but declined the counter-offer when they heard that he's not only expensive but I am part of the deal if he were to stay.

And that's it for the Arizona trip!  Largely boring with a few good parts. 

Arizona

We got to AZ late last night.  Conker was good in the car the whole way which was nice.

Anyways, internet access is incredibly limited so updates will probably not happen.  A post detailing the AZ vacation will be up sometime around or after new year. Other updates will be sparse or nonexistant.

Phoenix Arizona, prepare to be invaded!

Conker the Shiba Inu will be visiting the southwest this upcoming holiday season!  I would love to get together with any Phoenix area Shibas and their owners, if time allows, sometime this December.  I don't yet have definite dates as to when we'll be there but I do know we're going and that it'll probably be sometime after the 17th (kids gotta get out of school) and we'll be coming back to Oregon around new years eve.  We will most likely be staying in Buckeye with the Grandparents (haha so far from the actual city) but I've got a sister in Central Phoenix right across the street from Indian School Park and wouldn't mind driving there or a bit farther to have a mini Shiba-meet at a favorite dog park.

Anyways, let me know if any of you are interested in meeting us!  I should be getting definite dates sometime soon and will post them when I know what they are.

Lake Tahoe

We left somewhat later than I'd wanted.  Sometime around 12:30, then we stopped at a bunch of places before actually hitting the road. Conker wasn't fond of the car ride, as usual, but managed to sleep most of the way.
We got to our campsite around 9:30, took forever to set up and talked with the relatives.

The next day we did a lot of nothing then went to the lake.  Conker wasn't allowed on the beach but I found a small creek and let him play around in it since it was pretty warm that day.  I walked Conker around a lot while other people swam in the lake.
The lake itself was very pretty but I forgot to take a picture of it.

That afternoon... I can't really remember what we did but talking with the relatives, as long as they stayed away from religion, politics and conspiracy theories was good.

 Conker's favorite activity around the camp was walking down to the creek.  One day my cousin and I went creek sploring with Conker and while walking on some old logs, Conker tried to step onto some floating bark that he thought was solid. 
He did that about six times before I was able to get him away from it and farther down the creek.




The next two days were exiting for Conker.  My siblings and cousin went frisbee golfing and took Conker along.  He really wanted to chase the frisbies so I let him in the wide open areas.  He was good about going after mine instead of the others and dropped it if I told him to when he picked it up.

I ended up finding a dog store and bought Conker a bunch of Zuke's Z-Ridge things since nobody in my town sells them.  They had two new flavors and Conker much prefers the apple over the cranberry.

The next day's exciting part happened in the evening right after dinner.  Conker had been tied to the tree right beside our trailer but I put him inside since he didn't spazz out when I went to the other campsite right across the road if he were in there. 
Anyways, I was sitting beside the fire talking with some lady I'm not related to when I realized that the loud bark-like baying was coming from my campsite.  I looked over and saw something brown behind my great Aunt's car.  Someone's jacket on a chair I suspected. 

Then it moved.

It was a freakin bear.  A hugeass bear, so big that it was definitely over four feet tall on all fours.  And this hugeass bear was looking through the screen door at Conker who was going nuts barking his head off at it.  That bear was only a couple inches away from the trailer and was most likely interested in the chicken smell eminating from inside.
But some loud pesky thing was in the way, and I imagine Conker saved us a couple thousand dollars in damages and fines simply by being present.

I alerted everyone in the campsite that:  "It's going to eat my dog!  That frickin huge bear is going to eat my dog!"  I wasn't aware I said that but anyways...
All the men in the campground went charging across the road but stopped when the curious bear who had picked up some sort of cake dish that Mom forgot to toss in the bear-proof trash containers, stood his forepaws up on our flimsy table.  He was now about seven feet tall and that made everyone rethink their decision of charging said bear.

Then, thankfully, somebody found their keys and remotely set off the alarm on their truck the next campsite over and that startled the bear enough to start heading back to the forest.  All the guys re-charged and made a whole bunch of noise until the bear who had slammed into one of the poles of our tarp-thing and lost his cakepan ran off.  You could hear the other campers as he made the rounds banging on things and yelling until it got dark and I guess he moseyed off.

He is supposedly a well-known bear to the residents.

Conker was able to relax somewhat the next day.  I was going to go hiking with my sisters and a boyfriend of one of them but I was told that the trail was in a California State Park and dogs aren't allowed on the trails in those.  So I didn't bother getting up when they did early in the morning.  I didn't get curious as to if the trail actually was dog-friendly until after they'd left.  I pulled out my list of trails that allowed dogs and found out that the trail they went on did allow dogs.  I was ticked at myself for not checking sooner.

I did find a small dog park that Conker relaxed at while everyone else went mini-golfing.  It was probably only about 1/4th the size of GP's dog park but Conker still had fun running around after two resident dogs left. 



All in all the trip was fun, but activities with Conker were greatly lacking.  I was bummed out that the relatives weren't really open to us doing what we wanted during "scheduled" group activities that were often of no interest to any of my siblings or cousin.  This was also the first time beer was present at the Lake Tahoe gathering thing and thankfully nobody pestered us about it.
I learned a few funny things about my Dad that I didn't know so that was neat.

As per tradition we took a huge group photo which I will not be sharing and Conker was invited to be a part of.  Everyone really liked him and believe him to be a "calm" dog.  Not really, he was just in a completely new environment and had met about 12 new people in one day so it was a bit overwhelming for him.  He did end up warming up to a couple of them but didn't like the two young and rather spoiled fat kids (who I'm thankfully not related to) who kept pestering him to be pet.

The ride home was very uneventful.  Conker had phases of being nervous and panting then sleeping, like the ride out.  He did at one point crawl up into my younger brother's lap who had wanted to hold Conker on both rides and that made him happy.


The Girls were super happy to see me when I walked in through the back door. Sasha was so happy that she was whining, it was kinda sad but cute at the same time.  She's also had some de-progress pertaining to her diet and weight loss that I will write about later.

Off to Tahoe!

Well that's that.  We're leaving within the next 30 minutes hopefully, if Mom ever gets back...
Got some chews for the Girls to keep them busy, packed all Conker's crap up, finally got batteries for the Maxxum 4 and printed out a list of dog-friendly Tahoe places.


Next update will be either late Thursday or Friday. 

See you then!

Gearlist for Tahoe

I figured I'd post this here since it's dog related.

Stuff going on

The family is going on a "Memorial" trip to Lake Tahoe at the end of the month. It's for my Dad (died in 2005) and his cousin Glenn who was a firefighter in LA. If you heard about that earlier this year, the firefighter who died when the roof of a house collapsed in him, and the resulting huge service for him afterwards... He was a really neat guy and was fun to be around.

Anyways, we'd be going from the 23rd to the 30th. A whole week! Boarding Conker is NOT an option at all, and I am NOT comfortable leaving him here. He WILL destroy something from boredom or get into something he's not supposed to, and honestly? The backyard fence? He chooses to stay inside. That's how crap of a fence it is. If Conker wanted he could easily escape, which I know he would if he were left here, even with a dog-sitter who was here the whole time.
While he doesn't have bad SA he does have it to a point, and me being gone for a whole week... I'm not willing to find out just how long it takes him to decide to come find me.


While dogs are allowed in the campground (6 foot leash) and State Park itself, they are NOT allowed on the trails or the beaches. I can understand the beaches but the trails? What the hell are people who bring dogs going to do the whole time? Sit around at camp and play 6 foot fetch? Unfortunately my relatives (the problematic ones) have this favorite campground that's super far away from EVERYTHING fun to do at Tahoe that's located in the stupid un-dog friendly Sugar Point State Park.
I know there are some dog-friendly places at Tahoe and I'm going to do some research on them since I'm 100% not going to board or leave Conker. That decision is completely up to me, nobody else, and even if the relatives don't want Conker there if I go, he goes. I'm fine with not doing a couple activities with them (since they always tone everything down and somehow make it un-fun) and finding things to do with just me and Conker. Besides, I did just buy 8 rolls of film, and Lake Tahoe is a gorgeous place. I want to photograph it from the places most people don't go.

People going places

It's spring break for the Chillies here in GP.  Mom and my younger sibs are gonna go to Bend and ski/snowboard for a few days.  I'm staying here with the dogs.  When Mom asked me if I wanted to go she immediatly asked about Conker a second later.
I said:  "He's not going to be boarded because he's never getting a kennel cough shot (or any of those other useless things), I don't trust a dog sitter since they won't be around to constantly monitor him and the Girls (He'll fight with Juneau, pester Sasha and find a way to escape our badly constructed backyard fence) so I guess I'm staying here."
Mom was all  "Whatever."  And went on about how I love my dog too much and spoil him, feed him meat, let him sleep in my bed...

So they're heading out sometime tomorrow (today?) and I get to have the house all to my lonesome and take care of the three dogs and the sister's rabbit.  Whoop, I'm totally psyched about sleeping and waking when I want, listening to classical music and German metal as loudly as I want (I like it LOUD!) and not having to deal with this:

I'd go hiking but with the prices of gas well over $3.50 a gallon that's not happening anytime soon.  I've gotten back into writing and drawing but I doubt any of that will ever make it past the draft/sketch stages.  Maybe I'll draw my "interpretation" of Conker's personality and turn it into a comic or something.

Missouri to Oregon in three days.

That's right, 2,100 miles, 30+ hours of driving, in three days.  I'm insane.

We left St. Peters at noon on the 15th.  After calling Mom to let her know I was heading out (she told me not to, the weather was going bad but I went anyways) and the bank to set up travel and change my adress, we hit the road.

Conker was less than thrilled to be in the Jeep.  He's not fond of the Jeep, or any vehicle for that matter, and stared at me for the first five hours without moving.

Missouri was hella boring.  Snowish, wettish, boring.  Did you know that chains and winter tires are illegal in Missouri?  ILLEGAL.  You could face jail time if a cop caught you with chains in your car, I think.  Or just a fine, either one.
Nebraska was boring as all getout too. We drove through Missouri and Nebraska in one sitting, only making stops to take a nap, eat and do buisness.  We didn't stop in a hotel the first night, mainly because every time I wanted to stop the damn people wouldn't answer their phones or weren't in the lobby.  That pissed me off so we "slept" at rest stops for an hour or so then hit the road for another two.

I can't really remember Nebraska very well.  It was really dark, flat and dark.  I do remember the first night going up and down some windy mountains.  That was freaky and fun at the same time.  Wind + twisties + dark = awesome driving experience.

Wyoming was mainly flat.  The sun rose shortly before we entered the state.  The sunrise was gorgeous but unfortunately it was behind and to the left of us so I couldn't see it.  I let Conker romp around on the 30 foot lead as I woke myself in the freezing air.  I discovered several "pools" of ice that were completely frozen, or so I thought.  I stomped on one several times and was surprised when it broke and my foot plunged into freezing water.  You'd think the 7 month puppy, not the 22 year old human, would be the one who ended up in the cold water.  Not so.  Conker avoided the ice like the plague.  And surprisingly, despite the sub-freezing temperatures, the roads weren't icy at all.  (Several flashing signs said they were but we hit none.)

This trip through Wyoming was less boring than the other times I've been through it.  I listened to NPR for most of the night and morning and somehow found it interesting.  I don't remember what they talked about, but it was enough to keep me focused on the road the way music can't.  And for some reason semi-trucks are really fond of speeding in Wyoming.  Keep in mind the speed limit on most, if not all of the Interstate 80 is 75mph.  I kept my speed just below it the whole time.

Except for when it was lowered.  I never sped once on this entire trip.
Note Conker's do-it-yourself seat-belt.  Really ghetto, I know, but it worked.  After his five hour staring episode, he got used to being in the Jeep and slept most of the drive.  Whenever he was awake he was either pestering me to play, be scratched or chewing on the huge bully stick I bought him for the trip.  Or trying to rip apart his moose toy.

Conker's "seat" was padded with a body pillow and some towels.  He rode in comfort the whole time, something I began to lack in my shoulders in the middle of Wyoming.

Utah was stunning.  I love red rocks, desert-like formations, trees and snow.  Utah has all of those.  And weird road names in Salt Lake City but that's a different matter.  I don't think I bought gas in Utah at all, let alone stopped more than once.  I did however enjoy driving through it much more than the previous states. 

The Rockies.  Er, the middle of the Rockies.  This was one of the best parts of the trip.  I love driving on steep curvy roads, and that's what the Rockies are.  Sadly, whenever I'm having fun driving time passes by real quickly and it gets boring again.  Conker had gotten used to the curves by the second half and slept through it.

After the Rockies Utah got really flat and really windy.  We drove across the salt flats, a place I'd never been before. The wind was atrocious and there were programmable signs warning semi-trucks and light trailers not to travel on the I-80 due to the 55+ mph winds.  Winds that blew my little Jeep all over the road but it was exciting trying to keep it in my lane as I passed truckers and other cars.

After the Great Salt Lake came these weird green flats of saltwater stretching for miles on both sides of and in-between the highway.  They were only a couple inches deep but they seemed to go on forever!  They made the wind's threat somewhat worse because of ending up in a green, muddy, salty flat pool of yick the result of getting blown off the road.

Which is what happened to this semi-truck barely 20 minutes before I passed it.  The wind was so strong it blew it right over and into the saltwater.  The cab went into the water with the trailer blocking most of the other side of the highway.  I watched a story on it later that night.
Conker and I would have visited the Bonneville Salt Flats if it weren't for the wind.  Well, not the wind, the crap it kicked up.

Being a desert person, I've seen and driven through my fair share of dust storms.  This wasn't the worst I've been in but was pretty hairy in a few spots.  Right as I took this picture the sand picked up and made it worse than it had been when I went to take it.  Normally I wouldn't be operating a camera in these conditions but blew in so quick, I couldn't help but snap a shot before dropping the camera in my lap.

The blowing sand instantly changed to rain when we hit the mountains in Nevada.  The rain wasn't so bad but it changed to hail, then slush and then to wet snow.  My least favorite weather to drive through is slushy wet snow.  Rain, regular snow and sand don't affect my Jeep's traction unless I'm going horribly fast around a corner.  Slush and wet snow... I was going so slow I used the flashers for an hour and got passed by semi-trucks.  Which I hate because they send all kinds of slushy crap onto my windshield that I can't ever get off fast enough because my wipers don't have a light-speed setting.  That was perhaps my least favorite part of the drive. 

Once we got to Elko, fueled up and over the pass, the slushy snow vanished and never reared it's ugly head again.  It was a gorgeous drive from there to Winnemucca where we stayed for the night in a Motel 6 because, again, the other hotels didn't answer their damn phones.  All night Conker was all "bruh burh BURH!" at the smallest sounds.  I had to coax him onto the bed with a treat and he wouldn't stop being all stiff-legged and defensive the entire time he was in the room.  I didn't get very good sleep even though I was exhausted.

The next morning he decided we were waking up at 7:30 am by trotting around the room going "bruh burh bruh" until I got up and turned on the news.  The weather was for partly cloudy skies and snow flurries in the mountains in the afternoon, not a bad forecast considering what I'd gone through the previous day.
And as soon as we hit the road Conker was sleeping again.  I wanted to kill him.

The first stretch of this road through the northwestern mountains of Nevada was my favorite highway.  I like those little single-lane highways where in order to pass someone you have to go into oncoming traffic. The only radio station my Jeep got was ESPN and it was so boring I turned it off and popped in The Lion King soundtrack.
It got snowy as we got closer to Oregon and we said goodbye to the speed limit of 75mph for good and traded it in for a steady 55 mph.  And for good reason.

There's two kinds of speed limits.  The posted limit and the recommended limit.  The posted limit on this stretch of road was 35 while the recommended was 25.  I went 15 and kept the Jeep in 2nd gear the whole time.  It was hella steep and slippery with no guard rail and thankfully nobody came up behind me wanting to go faster.  NPR was on the radio again and despite the danger of falling to our deaths with a single wrong move, I was having fun on the sharply twisted hill.
The flatness between this hill and the next range of snowy mountains was also fun.  Not as fun but still better than Nebraska.  We got up into the mountains with no problems other than a few spots of slush. And then it began to snow. 

The road was mostly hard packed snow that was slippery on corners.  I don't like driving on this but will trade slushy-snow for it any day. 
Someone was stupid and decided to crash on this road during the heavier part of the snow.  I called up Mom and asked for a time estimate, 20 minutes to 2 hours, but it cleared in about 25 and wasn't even on the highway I was on.  For some reason the traffic on that highway backed up onto mine and blocked it.

We'd lost time due to the crash and the winter road conditions which disappeared for a bit when we reached Klamath Falls.  On the other side of the city however loomed a thick bank of fog.

 And a lake with no guard rail.  And more hard packed snow.  Conker decided the fog wasn't enough to keep the minimal sunlight out and struck a cute sleeping pose.
It was nothing but slippery packed snow, light flurries and fog from then until we reached the pass that separates snowy Oregon from wet Oregon.

From then on it was smooth sailing, or driving, to Medford then finally Grant's Pass at 6:30 PM on the 17th where we were greeted by my enthusiastic younger brother who asked me how long I was going to stay about a million times, my younger sister who wanted to hug me before the brother did and my Mom who was on the phone with someone. 



I really hate road trips unless they are entirely on my terms.  This one was, and if I didn't have a ton of crap in the back of my Jeep we'd have made detours and stopped in nifty places and taken longer than three days to get to Oregon.  But it was a move, not a vacation, and I hope to one day be able to go on a long roadtrip with Conker and whatever dogs I may have then and actually have it be based on having fun instead of getting from A to B in X amount of time.
Anywho, hello from Oregon!  Hopefully the blog updates will get more interesting as I find things to do with Conker in our "new" more or less temporary home.