A little break before the defense

Well, what's up y'all?! I know it's been a while since I got my paws on the keyboard, but the Food Guy has been writing his comprehensive exams day and night for the last 3 months. So computer time has been hard to come by for this Yellow Dog. Well, Ok, maybe not day and night. We have had some good adventures here and there. We've gone to the mountains a few times and took a few trips to Charlotte to check on the Food Guy's dad. 

Food Guy turned his exams in last week, so he decided it was time for a little vacation. He decided to meet some friends and go to West Virginia to paddle for a few days. I didn't get to go though, which I wasn't too happy about. But the campground didn't allow dogs. It's OK though- A friend of the Food Guy who is about to head off for Marine Officer Candidate School stayed with me here in Athens. He did a good job of being alternate Food Guy. He took me for lots of walks! 

Anyway, the Food Guy finally finished all of the grading he should have done this weekend, so now I can get to the computer while he finishes cleaning all of his gear from the trip. While he's doing that, I'll fill ya in on the latest. 

Mostly, it's been pretty quiet. Food Guy defends his exams on Wednesday, so he's pretty focused on that right now. He did have a great trip to WVa though. He told me all about it. I wish  I could have gone it is pretty up there. See: 

He drove over to NC Thursday morning and jumped in the truck with Brian. Then they drove all day Thursday and got to the Cheat River at about 9 oclock. Friday morning they went up to PA and paddled part of the Yough. (I can't spell the rest of that word- it's a long one and I'm a smart dog but even I have my limits.) Then they headed back to WVa to chill at the camp. I heard it rained a lot up there. They didn't even get to paddle the Cheat.  But they did get to paddle the Big Sandy. Looks like fun, huh? Food Guy hasn't been kayaking much lately, so I'm glad they decided to paddle something easy. Wouldn't want him to get all busted up. I need somebody to take me on long hikes and runs on the trail! It looks like there were some great surf waves on that river. 

After they finished paddling, Food Guy and his friends went back to camp and ate some food. Man, think of all the food I could have gotten people to give me if I could have gone! I gotta make sure I get to go next time!

Next they went over to the Cheat River Festival. It sounds like it was a lot of fun. Food Guy said there was some great music at the festival on Saturday night. It was of the bluegrass variety, which is my favorite. I know, Reeve would say Food Guy and I are dirty hippies, but whatever! Anyway, check out this pic of the buildaround Food Guy saw at the river:

This is some high quality Appalachian workmanship. It's a singlewide, a camper, and a building. Crazy, huh?! I thought I'd seen some good stuff in NC, but this tops it all!

Well, that's about it for now. I'll be sure to let y'all know how the Food Guy does at his Comps Defense on Wednesday. He'd better pass. We can't afford for him to get booted out of school. Plus, he spent way too much time working on those papers to fail. I mean, we could have been out having some serious fun during all those hours he was working!

Cheerwine and Stairs

The great thing about having a food guy who's a college football fan is that you usually get to go hiking on Sunday afternoons. Lots of dogs have food guys who always watch football on saturdays and sundays. Don't get me wrong, the NFL is great, but it's nice to get outside whenever possible. This Sunday we went up to Tallulah Gorge for a great hike. I don't have any red-leg black-leg stories today, but I do have a pretty good hike to tell ya'll about today. 

So, my food guy used to kayaking all the time. It was before I was around, but from what I can tell he used to never to anything but find crazy creeks to go down all the time. Now, he's a little more diverse, which works out well for me. This week, our big adventure was to Tallulah Gorge, which is in North Georgia about 25 minutes from North Carolina. It's a really pretty place. Food Guy used to go kayaking there all the time. But today was all about hiking. First we stopped at this little store overlooking the Gorge. It's awesome. It's like a little microcosm of Southern Appalachian culture. Since one of my jobs is showing people from Oregon around, I figured stopping at this store was a good idea. There's all kinds of crazy Southern trinkets and, best of all they have Cheerwine in glass bottles. Food Guy didn't let me drink any (he's so crazy with the no people food rule) but he said it's really good. Then we hiked along the path to the stairs that go down to into the Gorge. It was pretty cool, and Food Guy seemed pretty happy not to be carrying a kayak. 

See, he used to carry a boat down the 1122 stairs and then paddle the crazy rapids. He was pretty psyched not to have to paddle Oceana today. It's a pretty wild looking rapid. See

So, he seemed pretty happy just to be enjoying the view, and he kept saying how much easier it was to walk down there without a 50 pound piece of tupperware on his shoulder. It was a pretty cool place. I had to stay on a leash because there's all these rules about not stepping on the endangered species of plants in the Gorge. I kind of felt like a dirty hippy being worried about the Persistent Trillium and all that, but I suppose it's a good idea not to trample rare plants. Anyway, we got down to the put-in and took it all in. 

  Usually, there's a lot more water when you go down there to paddle. And it looks a little more like this:  

So, today's activities were on the mellow side. We saw lots of people breathing hard going back up the stairs who have little different idea of what mellow is, but I guess it takes all kinds...

Anyway, we got back up to the top of the Gorge and walked around a little more. The overlooks are pretty cool. Check this one out:

The Food Guy was a little tired after walking down the stairs. It's a long way down to the river from the top, so we walked back to car to head back to Athens. As far as hikes go. This one was pretty tame. It was short, and more like walking on a path than a real hike, but it wasn't too shabby. I suppose it's ok to go on an easy hike once in a while. Especially the day after the Food Guy goes on one of his long runs. Anyway, ya'll have a good week. The Food Guy says he has too much homework to do this week, so it'll probably be next weekend before we have another adventure. But you can be sure that I'll have some things to say about his crazy, "landmark" pants at the Vandy game next weekend. GO DAWGS!