We're in Durango Colorado kickin it with some cow boys eatin beans by the campfire and riding horses... ok, that's all a big lie except for the Durango part. I really dig this town as it is quite dog friendly and has a large river flowing through the middle. Not only is the town dog friendly but the B&B we're staying in has this HUGE fluffy dog bed with fresh sheets and delicious home made peanut butter dog treats. It's about time the hospitality industry starts catering to those of us who really matter!

Enough about me. I figured that I should fill you in on some of the work my peeps have been doing since we're always telling you stories about our days off. The best part is that the days on are a little more exhausting but just as exciting! Last year when we were in Durango we spent a lot of time trudging through dense brush laying out trails in the Durango Mountain Park. It was hard work and we weren't sure if the trails would be approved but this year we found out that they were approved and we got to build them! After teaching a class on trail building (I can take no credit for that) we headed out to the project that we had flagged with 25 trail enthusiasts. Here are a few photos of what we do every Saturday afternoon!


Cutting a trail through shale can be pretty hard work but it pays off.


This was the only patch of dirt we found all day amongst the shale. It was so soft and fluffy and diggable...



Here's our group of participants from the Durango trail advocacy club "Trails 2000". They are an awesome crew and we are once again blown away by the great personalities we've met here and the incredible hospitality of our host Mary.


Mary and I were working really hard on this section. I'm super helpful with the trail work supervision and finding of soft, cool, freshly dug patches of trail. I also really enjoy pulling all the sticks off the trail and eating them since my people don't really feed me.

BOWOWOWOWWOOOOO BARK

That's how I sound when my people are doing this...


I don't know what it is but I just freak out and sound as though I am being attacked by a swarm of killer bees.


And then once in a while I get loose and try to chase down whoever is in the water which usually ends badly.


This was on Brush Creek just outside of Kernville, CA.


Not so bad eh?

Sorry, I've Broken!

I know, it's been a while since I've updated you but I hurt my toe which has made it difficult to type. I would have Anna transcribe for me but she's a horrible speller so I fired her and just took a vacation. I'm feeling better now, my toe is still attached and I am almost cleared to run on the trail again. Since I was unable to get into any mischief in the woods I decided to become a threat to national security. The Department of Homeland Security was after me for a bit so I needed to stay off the blog and out of the public eye but now that I'm back at being a trail dog, the good news is:


So I am no longer having to lay low. I'll get you updated on all the other exciting stuff later.

There's No Place Like Something That Resembles Home

We're not really sure where home is at this point so it's easy to be there. Right now we're in Grenada CA, at my grandogma & pa's new house and it feels a lot like home with an amazing view of Mount Shasta out of all the windows which come down to dog level so I can finally see outside. But then there's Hood River, the Cleary and Snyder residences which feel quite a bit like home, Discover Bicycles which is also pretty close and Post Canyon which is oozing with hominess. There is also of course, our beloved yurt just over the Columbia in WA which we love and often refer to as our home which starts the conversation about how we've never actually lived there but look forward to doing so someday. Last but nowhere close to least, is Forks WA where we can always expect good company, relaxation and all our toys are living in the garage. So I suppose at this point, being homesick for us involves missing 3 states and quite a few different spots in each one but thankfully we can say that right now we're home!



As many of you know, we've been spending a lot of time in places that bare no resemblance to home at all and that has been pretty exciting. Jason and Anna dropped me off with some friends in Arizona for 2 weeks so they could go gallivanting around the Caribbean islands. I think they felt a little bad when they said goodbye but I had a great time. They returned to find me 7lbs heavier, and as happy as can be with my two new golden retriever friends Duke and Hanna. Here's what they were up to while I was kickin it Arizona style. I'll let Anna tell the stories:



We'll start in the Dominican Republic. I shared a window with this cutie on the flight from Miami FL to Santiago DR. Upon arrival we were welcomed to the country by a couple of awesome guys who took us out to a delicious and very authentic DR dinner which consisted of meat, fried plantain, beer, meat, fried plantain and beer. The plantain was cooked in 4 different ways as was the meat. It was exceptional and just what we needed after a day in the airport.

We were up bright and early the next morning to explore potential new trails before we taught our first fully translated Trail Building School (Spanish is spoken in the DR). The ride was an adventure starting with a crew of local tobacco farmers and their kids flocking to our trucks to see what was going on as they had never seen mountain bikers in their mountains before. The sight of a girl on a mountain bike was even more of a shock but I had a good disguise with my short hair. The kids were especially impressed with the digital camera and loved seeing themselves in the view finder.






The ride was steep and consisted of trails that had been created by donkeys going from farm to farm along the creek. A few sections also seemed to be used by locals to access the water for washing and drinking. We saw kids with donkeys carrying many gallons of water from the creek up to the farms as we rode and even had one of them tag along on the ride. We weren't going very fast (Jason and I were riding the same size carbon hard-tail bikes with skinny skinny tires) so his flip flops didn't affect his ability to hang with us.


After the "exploratory" ride which was quite the adventure we rushed back to the hotel to get ready to teach a Trail Building School that we were 2 hours late for. The evening went well and it went late leaving us a few hours to sleep and prepare for trail work the next day. The work was fun and we built some sweet single track but those Dominican guys aren't used to letting the ladies swing tools. Every time I was able to trick someone into letting me grab a shovel there was someone else saying "Oh, here, let me get that for you". It was pretty funny so I took a lot of photos of Jason and the dudes working hard and gave up on getting dirty.


After a hard days work we headed back to the city. Don't forget that while we were in the beautiful Caribbean, we were by no means on vacation. We ended up working from 8am until 10pm everyday with out a moment going unscheduled. It was physically and socially exhausting but it was an incredible experience and one that we wouldn't trade for anything. The following morning we got up to go scout out some more trails. The ride was not what we would call and epic mountain biking experience but it was one of the coolest cultural adventures I've been on. While the trails were not the best quality, the scenery was incredible, the company was fun, and the people who lived in the tiny villages and farms we rode through made my day.




For being our first island visit in the Caribbean it was a little odd to spend the whole time in Santiago which is a bustling city in a developing country far from any beaches. The cyclists we got to meet were a lot of fun and we made plenty of friends while we were there. The strangest part is that despite the lack of good mountain bike trails, beaches, and whatever else we were expecting, out of the three islands we visited, the Dominican Republic is the one we are the most eager to see again. Perhaps it's because we only saw such a small part of it, mostly city and we know there's much more to explore.

After another exhausting day of airports we bounced from the DR back to Miami, through customs, a 6 hour lay over in the airport, 4 hour flight to Trinidad, through customs again and there we were. 7 miles off the coast of Venezuela on the southern most piece of Caribbean island. Our hotel was far away from everything up a winding road through the city and suburbs which we were told was not safe to walk on (I later found out that the warning was in-fact justified when I took the risk of walking home from town one afternoon). Once again our very scheduled days began with 8am to 10pm work. This left us little time for wandering so the location of our lodging didn't bother us. Luckily work included some really fun rides through the jungle with a crew of Trinidadians. In Trinidad everyone speaks English with a strong accent very similar to a Jamaican accent. It was nice to know that people understood us but it was not a two way street at first. It takes a while to catch on to the thick island speech but it sure sounds cool.



We taught another Trail Building School in Trinidad and spent two days out in the field building trail. It was so cool to work in the rain forest, use giant bamboo stalks in our construction and learn to swing a machete like a real islander! The people we worked with were awesome and the trail that was built was stocked with fast berms and flowy goodness.


We were starting to feel the affects of our schedule so Jason talked our host into giving us the evening off after our last day of trail work. I don't think our host realized that even going out to dinner with a group was feeling like work as neither of us had had a moment of solitude let alone a moment together in close to two weeks. I headed out of the hotel with my camera and went on an adventure of my own in the hills above Port of Spain and for the first time since we had been in Trinidad I got a glimpse of the ocean! Later that night Jason and I enjoyed a quiet dinner in the deserted hotel restaurant and enjoyed an evening to ourselves.


Now it was time for our 3 days of freedom in the Caribbean. We had decided to head over to the neighboring island of Tobago which is the ideal example of a classic Caribbean island. We had befriended a Tobago local while we were in Trinidad and he had hooked us up with a room and bikes far from the ugliness that was the Hilton. We met him on the 6am ferry and headed to the laid back, slow pace, mellow village near Boccu Bay where we enjoyed a few days of incredible company, ridiculously fun rides, painfully beautiful beaches and cute puppies.


Moxy almost ended up with a new sister. This is Tea Cup who kept us company in Tobago and helped me through a nasty case of food poisoning that kept me off the trails for a day.





Jason is riding a curb and while it's wider than most curbs, it drops 25' onto a metal shack on his left. The locals loved riding these things and they are all over the place on the roads that connect the single track in Tobago.



The bikes that live in Tobago are hard core. These things don't get to see a mechanic or new parts. Most of the bikes and parts are second hand and hammered. There is no real bike shop on Tobago and even getting your hands on a patch kit is a challenge. It took Jason and I the better half of a day to find a handful of patches. One of the tubes rollin on our rides had 27 patches on it! That should give you an idea of how tough it is to come by supplies. That said, the trails the company and the experience of riding in Tobago are so amazing that we didn't care what we were riding, we didn't care about the bald tires the broken components, or the size of the bikes we were on. I can't even explain how much fun we had rolling around Tobago with Rich, Gervais, and Eamon. Of course Jason paid for the good times as he was the best mechanic that had visited these guys and he gave all the bikes more love than they had seen in many years.


One of the coolest trails I've seen is in Tobago. After a steep road climb you roll to the top of a hill to find single track winding it's way from the end of the road through the tight pile of houses on top of the hill. This ribbon of single track continues to bob and weave through a small village between houses, shacks, and a small creek. It's complete with slick-rock, stone stairs, chunky drops and vicious dogs that will draw blood if you don't pin it. As we rolled past the yellow house in the photos below, a man came out onto his porch and invited us in for a taste of his homemade cashew wine. He'd seen the local guys riding out there before and loved the fact that we were having fun in his back yard. He hurried into his house and popped back out with an arm full of glasses, a bowl of ice cubes and a bottle of yellow wine. The wine was great and the man who's name I have forgotten shared stories of his younger days when he used to ride a bike in the military and build his own wheels. He even brought out a photo to share and behind the dusty broken glass was a much younger, taller, and more serious version of him in a Trinidadian military uniform.






We hadn't planned for the steep steep climb right after a glass of wine all of which, coupled with my already sick state made for a painful last half of the ride. I must add that along with all the incredible riding we also had some incredible beach time but, for fear of being stuck with the rest of the Caribbean tourists, I never took my camera to the beach. If you want to know what it was like, just find the most picturesque photo of a Caribbean island, add a hammock, a small surf break, replace all the crispy tourists with a handful of really good people from all over the world, some tasty beers, a few deadly jelly fish which washed up on the shore and you'd have the beach that we had the pleasure of being only a 2 minute walk away from. It was also at the end of every ride. Not so bad!

It was hard to leave Tobago but we were looking forward to our own bikes, seeing Moxy, and beginning the drive north to see our family and friends. We spent one last day on Trinidad before leaving and went for a ride with our host who had begged us to come look at one last Trinidad trail in hopes of deeming it an "IMBA Epic" at some point in the future. The trail was amazing and I wished that I had been able to eat more than a banana and a glass of cashew wine in the two days prior but despite the lack of energy, Jason helped keep me on my bike and smiling. He rocks! The trail took us past leaves bigger than us, big tarantula webs, some of the craziest sounding birds we've heard and through an old growth jungle which ended at a view of the north coast of Trinidad.




Now we're back in bundled up, cold as winter, no more shorts land! It's freaking cold here! But it's good to be home, wherever that is.

We're Back!

My peeps have returned from their adventures in the Dominican Republic, Trinidad and Tobago with tan feet and all of strange smells stuck to them. I think they were playing with other dogs! Anyway, they are very busy with work and won't let me have the computer for long enough to post much so you'll have to wait a week or two for exciting stories and photos of my adventures in Arizona and theirs in the Caribbean. Here are a few to get you by until then.



Jervaise riding the curb in Plymouth Tobago, it's hard to see but there is a 25' drop onto a metal shack off the side.



Every day in Tobago ended with a sweet sunset on the beach after putting in lots of miles with great people on the trail.

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.