A run in Graham county and a whole lotta work

Greetings, y'all. It's been a busy month since the Food Guy got back from his trip. He's been working more than a food guy should work. Really, he has. I know. I know. Can you really call reading books, drinking coffee, writing, and talking to people about their classrooms work? Maybe. Maybe not . Food Guy seems to enjoy it, so we're not complaining. We did sneak out of Athens last weekend to head up to NC for a fun weekend of running and paddling. We drove up there and met Reeve and Rin at Silvermine on Friday night. Reeve, Food Guy, and me took our buddy Brian for a run on the Flint Ridge trail Saturday morning. It was awesome. I love that trail. Brian hasn't done any running in a long time, but he did really well. We're hoping to suck him into the stupid activity that is trail running. He'd be a great addition to our group of people who like stupid hobbies. Then, Reeve and Food Guy went paddling while I took a nap. See, I really am a smart dog.

Then (insert scary music here) Sam and Sam arrived from Chattaboogie. If you don't know Sam Squared, well, you're really missing out. The Sams are two of the most ridiculous athletes around. They're straight sick in the head. I think that's why Food Guy and Reeve like hanging out with them so much. Sunday morning we loaded up in the truck and headed to Graham county for a run along Snowbird Creek. It was really nice out. Not too hot (I do wear a yellow fur coat, so that's important) and not too cold. Not too cold is good too since we had to cross the creek like 50 times. Ok, maybe not 50. But I'm not a swimmer. I like to DRINK water. Not swim in it. The run started off pretty mellow. Sam S. got a little car sick riding in the bed of the truck with me and Java, so he didn't push the pace until about 4 minutes in. Then, he took off like a shot. The rest of us just did our best to keep the Sams in our sights as we went up the trail. As always, the run was harder than advertised. It was a Reeve activity, so that's always how it goes.

We had a lot of fun on the run, and then we went back to Silvermine to have some good dinner. I slept while Food Guy, Reeve, and the Sams cooked up their next big (read: stupid) adventure. Those guys have issues. I heard them talking about things like riding bikes from Bryson City to Chattanooga and then running back or some stupid thing like that. You know we do have more civilized ways to travel. Java and I have that all figured out. See:

Overall it was good weekend. The only downside was that my Dawgs got their butts kicked by Oklahoma State. Lame!

This week, Food Guy and I have mostly been chillin here in Athens. He's been teaching, doing research, and getting job application stuff ready to send out. I really hope he gets a job somewhere cool. I want to go live somewhere fun, and I'll get more dog bones if he has a job. We've been doing some good runs everyday here in Athens, and I've been catching up on my sleep. We spent most of this weekend here in Athens. Food Guy had to catch up on some work, and he went to watch the Dawgs beat South Carolina yesterday. Not a bad weekend at all.

Well, that's about it for now. We should have some more big adventures soon.

Food Guy Goes West

So the Food Guy came rolling back into town to pick me up late, late saturday night. He had some pretty good stories to tell about his trip out to Utah. He and his buddy Brian took off from Charlotte a couple of weeks ago and drove straight through to Colorado. I'll let him tell the story 'cause he and I just got back from a long run and I'm tired. So, take it away Food Guy.

Yup, Brian and I jumped in his giant Dodge and started heading west. We were too amped up to sleep at first, so we both stayed awake. That turned out to be a bad idea. By the time we got to Kansas we were pretty shot. So we went ahead and slept in a rest area for two hours. When we woke up we noticed this crazy marker- just in case we didn't know where we were we had this sign to let us know we were in the heartland- or armpit depending on who you ask- of America.
We sucked it up and got back on the road because we knew there were better things down the highway. We rolled into Colorado in time for lunch with one of Brian's buddies who just happened to be flying into Denver. We spent the night chillin in Colorado and then set off for Utah. Man, what a beautiful place.

We put on the Green River at a place called Sand Wash and prepared to spend the next week floating along, hiking, and just generally being glad to be in the Wilderness. There were some really cool rock formations along the way. Check this one out:

The river was pretty chill. Only a few real rapids, but it was lots and lots of fun. I spent a couple of days cruisin' along in Brian's kayak and a couple of days hangin' out in the raft paddling through what the locals call "the upstream W" or as we called it "that damn" wind. I met some cool folks from Salt Lake, and they assured me the wind wasn't as bad as it could be. Whatever, it sucked to be paddling a raft through it. But, I did get to row one of the big boats one day. We tied the kayak and the paddle raft to one of the big boats and took turns rowing away. It was a lot of fun.

All in all, it was one of the most amazing trips I've ever been on. I brought a copy of Walden and Edward Abby's book Down the River. How funny is it that the first essay in that book was "Down the River with Henry David Thoreau"? Crazy, huh? I thought so. Especially since Abby wrote that essay while he was floating down the Green back in the day. It was great to contemplate the wonders of the western wilderness with Abby and HDT echoing in my mind. Mostly, I just enjoyed hanging out with great friends- new and old- and being away from work, my crackberry, and my computer. I never thought I'd consider living out West, but now I'm giving it serious thought. I love the southeast, but there's something compelling about the big mountains and vast spaces out there. I guess the job market will determine where I end up. Who knows? I sure don't. All I know is I'll be heading back out west next time I'm ready for an adventure. Only next time I'll be prepared for the hell that is driving though Kansas and I'll be bringing YD with me. He'd love it out there.

Filling the Post-Tour Void

Now that the Tour is over it's tough to know what to do all morning around here. Don't get me wrong, me and the Food Guy watched Sportscenter a couple of times this morning. But, it's always a sad couple of days when the Tour ends. So, me and the Food Guy spent most of the day getting packed for his trip to Utah. I helped the Food Guy figure out what he needed to bring, and I also supervised him as he got all of my stuff together. I made sure he packed me plenty of food and extra dog bones. Then, we settled in to watch some TV:

It was a pretty nice, relaxing day on the couch. Since the Food Guy decided that we should try to officially enjoy summer instead of working today, he went to the video store and rented us season two of the show Arrested Development. It's such a great show- even though there aren't any dogs on it. At least not yet. Maybe they got smart and introduce a dog character in season three. Who knows? I guess we'll have to rent the next season to find out. Either way, I'm not too worried about it. Anytime I can convince the Food Guy to take a little break from working and hang out on the couch, I'm happy. We had a pretty nice day of watching the Bluth family blunder around on the picture box. We also took a bunch of good walks on the trails behind our house. All in all, I have to say I like summer a lot.

Chillin with Sage

The Food Guy and I went back over to Sage's house so he and Sage's Food Guy (Bob) could do some more work on the porch today. The got some good work done and Sage and I mostly just chilled out and played tug of war with a cool rope toy that Sage has. It was lots of fun. I'm so tired from playing that I need a nap though. I figured I'd post that pic I promised y'all before I went took another nap. The Food Guy and I have to rest up to watch the last stage of the Tour tonight. Check out Sage-- he could be my dogcousin:

Manual Labor Anyone?

The Food Guy and I have had a pretty nice week just chillin' out here in Athens. Food Guy got some good work done, and I got lots of couch time in. We've spent lots and lots of time watching The Tour on TV in the mornings. That was followed by some good walks on our trails before the Food Guy headed out for his ride each day. We've spent the last couple of days at the Food Guy's Major Professor's (Bob) house working on a porch. Well, the Food Guy and Bob worked while I hung out on the porch with the Bob's dog Sage. Sage is a cool old dog. He's a pretty good lookin' fella. I'll have to get the Food Guy to get a picture of us to post sometime. He looks like me only smaller and he has a white blaze on his doghead. Sage is really chill. He mostly sleeps but he plays with me a little bit and lets me play with all of his toys while he sleeps.

It's been a pretty fun time. I like watching the Food Guy work. He cracks me up. He smashes his thumb once in a while just to make me laugh. I think it's good for him to do a little manual labor sometimes. I think it helps him to remember why he likes writing and sitting around drinking coffee so much. Plus, I think it's good for the Food Guy and Bob to work on stuff outside of school. They seem to have a lot of fun talking about baseball instead of school stuff. You can't really get to know someone if all you ever talk about is academic stuff. We do have to let it slide that Bob is a Phillies fan, though.

Well, I'm tired out from playing with my new buddy Sage and watching the Food Guy work, so I'm going back to sleep. Besides, we have to get up early to watch the last stage of the Tour get started before we head over to Bob's to finish up the porch. Y'all have a good one.

Home again

Hi, everybody! I'm back. The Food Guy did an OK job with the blog while he was out West, but now I'm back. He's pretty tired from having so much fun out there. I was pretty happy to see the Food Guy when he picked me up last night. It was a little late though. He didn't get to Jen's until like midnight. I mean, I was all ready to settle in for a good night's sleep when he got there. I was pretty tired from having so much fun last week. The Food Guy and I rolled into Athens at 2:30 in the morning. I slept the whole way home, and I jumped right in bed when we got home.

Last week was a lot of fun though. I got to hang out with Jen, Zozo, and Sug. They're so much fun! I got to go for a couple of runs by the river at Sope Creek. I spent lots and lots of time playing in the yard, and I even found some new, fun ways to pass the time outside. I learned how to dig. Me and Zozo and Sug had lots of fun digging in the yard. We got caught the first time, but then Zozo taught me how to clean my paws off so I'd look innocent. She's such a smart doggie. She tries to hide how smart she is. She acts like she's just a lazy fuzzy bear, but she's really as smart as Sug-- and you know Sug can read books. That's pretty smart. I had so much fun with my ATL peeps that I almost forgot the Food Guy was gone. Jen let me sit on her lap as much as I wanted to, and she didn't get mad at me when I thought the sprinkler was a dog toy. I even made a new friend, Bella. She's a sweet doggie. She's drinks water like I do, which means that she drinks a lot of water and tries to get as much on the floor as she can. She also likes to play with lots of toys at once. We played and played and played and played. I think we made Sug tired from how much we ran around.

I really do like going on adventures, but I think the Food Guy and I are both pretty happy to have a little bit of time to chill here in Athens. I think we're gonna stay close to home for a little while. It is July, which means we need to be able to watch the Tour every day! But I'm sure we'll go on a big adventure pretty soon. I'll keep y'all posted!

Last Day in Tahoe

Hey everybody, Yellow Dog told me to go ahead and write one more post since I'm still out West and he's too far away from the keyboard to get his paws on it. Today was the last day of the writing retreat in Tahoe. Angela and I got our work done in the morning so we decided to skip out before our presentation with some folks from Clemson to go parasailing. I've always wanted to try it, and I wasn't disappointed at all!

The view was amazing!

It was probably the windiest day of the whole trip, so it made a lot of sense to get out and do something that would be fun in the wind, right? Right. Much better than working ALL day long. We snuck out a few minutes before lunch feeling a lot like high-schoolers sneaking out of school to go drink some beer before the football game. Not that I would know anything about doing something like that. But, I've heard stories.

We got down into town quickly and hooked up with a boat to take us out. We got right up in the sky and enjoyed the beautiful day

The guides were great. It was pretty funny listening to the "trip talk" instead of giving it. I had to laugh at the jokes about only losing a couple of people a season. I've told a few of them myself to the poor souls that sat in my rafts to go down the Ocoee.

I was most impressed with how well these guys got the chute ready for us. They were right on top of the customer service skills. They would have made great ERA guides back in the gorge.

Well, this has been a great trip. I didn't sleep a whole lot while I was out here. I didn't want to miss a second of all the good stuff there was to do here out in Tahoe. I could get used to this weather. It was 45 or so in the mornings and never really got above 75 in the afternoon. I wish I had my bike out here. The riding would have been amazing. But, I would not have gotten any work done at all, which would have been bad since the folks at the National Writing Project were kind enough to fly us out here to work. I met some great people and I'm really looking forward to the conference in Philly this November.

I'm off to bed now. Can't wait to see the Yellow One tomorrow night. I'm sure he'll have some good stories about his week in the ATL.