Texas Paradise

My people left me in a kennel for 2 nights. Doesn't that sound horrible? It's really not. The kennel was rad. Kym, the owner is the coolest lady in Texas and staying at her kennel consists of 4-5 hours of hiking in the desert each day, swimming in the creek, hanging out in her kitchen and sleeping in the house. It was awesome and I had a great time. I'm glad I stayed there too because while I was galavanting around the Southern Texas desert with my gang of awesome dog homies, my people were up in the Chisos Mountains of Big Bend National Park where the Kitties are far to big for me to chase. The short one has a little story about their adventure for you:



Jason, Kelly, Collins and I worked in the back country of the Chisos Mountains which are on the border of Texas and Mexico for the last 3 days with a National Park Service Trail Crew. We stayed at Boot Camp, a long standing Back Country Trail Crew camp and historical site. It was incredible. The Chisos are unlike any mountains I have seen or explored. At 7500' jutting out of the desert like an explosion of rock and dirt they are covered with juniper, pine, agave, and all sorts of cacti. They are also filled with Mountain Lion, Bear, Javalina, and other furry woodland creatures. For those of you who haven't seen the 4 bins of Mountain Lion pictures, and stuffed animals in my parent's garage that made up my Christmas and birthday gifts as a child, I have a long standing obsession with these big kitties. When Kelly told me she had just seen a large black cat butt disappear into the bushes I figured it was something else as these cats are brown and nobody had seen a panther up there yet so I went to check it out. Yeah, maybe that wasn't the smartest thing to do but as I said before, obsessed. So, I walked slowly through the scene in the photo above until I came upon a clearing in the trees where I saw the most beautiful and terrifying animal I have ever seen. It's a strange feeling to be overcome by fear and awe. I couldn't move. The cat was huge and only 50 feet away from me walking slowly through the grass across my view with an un-fazed glance in my direction. As soon as I pulled myself together I walked back to the group (with many over the shoulder checks) and told them what I had seen. Three of us went back into the woods and followed the cat for about a half mile. Troop and Eric saw it again, Eric got a fuzzy photo, and we called it a day. I'll post the photo as soon as I get it. So, there is my story for the week. I'm still high on the Chisos. Those mountains are spectacular and so unique. I've never been anywhere like this and I will definitely come back. Here area few photographs from our adventure.


View of Mexico from the South Rim


Das Boot Camp Cabin


Agave


It's sharp but it tastes sooooo good!

My Peeps is Odd.

It's not very often that we get to double back on our tracks but today we got the opportunity to revisit the first work project my people did when we hit the road last year. needless to say, it was the best part of the trail! I must have missed the conversation about how it was followed by lots more of the same and ended up tearing my paws pretty badly on the sharp desert rocks.



As most of you know, the shorter half of my people is a little odd... note the socks.



And the taller one is, well, also a little odd.



Luckily they are surrounded by plenty of oddness so it all works out.