Don't Pull Socks From Your Dog's Butt

This is Dano.



This is Dano's butt.

This is the story about how the subject line was appropriate in an email I sent today.

We're house sitting for 2 friends the last couple weeks while they're scuba diving. Dano & Pepper are their two dogs that we're taking care of. Pepper tends to be a Houdini wanna be and Dano is a vacuum cleaner. Dano has eaten whole socks and various other inappropriate items in his past, and is getting old and cranky. (Can't blame him, he's 15. That's like 105 in people years.)

The first sign of a problem was that Dano didn't eat breakfast. Normally he hoovers it so fast that he has a special bowl that has obstructions to slow him down. So not eating at all is a bad sign. Then he kind of shook all day and didn't eat dinner. Then he cried all night until I laid next to him. So we called the hospital and got some medication. When things didn't get much better, he was admitted. Eventually they found in addition to his malnutrition (due to not eating/drinking for a day), he seemed to have something in his stomach.

When we first found him, we thought it might be that he ate 2 ant traps and the plastic was stuck in his stomach causing lacerations. The vet found what appeared to be a big pile of gas in his stomach and that seemed to confirm a laceration had taken place. Then it moved towards his colon. We don't know what is yet, but I think I'm missing a sock or two and that would also make a lot of sense.

This is where the vet said what I find very funny: Don't pull the sock out of your dog's butt. (It could cause internal lacerations if you do that.) Meg apparently gave the vet a funny look where she continued: "If it doesn't come out all the way, maybe cut it off if you don't want it swinging around."

I'm sorry Becky, Farrokh and Dano, but as much as I like you that's too funny not to share.

My Left Side is Trying to Kill Me

After completing a 50k on Saturday in about 7.25 hours, Meg & I went home to putz around the house and generally have a quiet afternoon and evening. My left hand had other plans apparently.






I was working on the bike for a bit and for some reason, my left hand thought it would be a good idea to mess around with the chain WHILE the fixed gear was spun up. The bike was upside down and the wheel was moving fairly fast. I should point out that this bike does not have a free hub, so as long as the chain is on the rings, if the wheel is moving, the cranks will always be moving. So, you can see, when my pinkie finger went suicidal and jumped into the ring, it dragged the rest of my left hand in with it.

The wheel stopped spinning after 3 fingers were in the ring and only then because the chain FINALLY jumped off the track.

We raced to the emergency room and while waiting for the local anesthesia to kick in, Meg & I discovered that my left side really is trying to kill me, and has been working at it for a long time. All of my scars from surgeries and accidents are on my left side.

I always get my shots on the left arm, so maybe it's had enough and wants to secede from the nation of Seth.

For those that are worried though, I'm fine. 8 Stitches in the pinkie and maybe a little nerve damage at the end is all i have wrong. Its hard to type though, so this will be the end of the drama I will post, for now.

Until the next time my left side tries to kill me.....

Longs Peak, CO

We came, we saw, we gave it the old college try and then we turned back.

Longs Peak is the tallest mountain in Rocky Mountain National Park at 14, 259 ft and is summited by thousands of climbers each year. My hat's off to them. While only 144 ft. taller than Pike's Peak, Longs is a very different climb.

In order to be off the mountain before the afternoon thunder and lightening storms roll in it is recommended that you begin the hike to the boulder field at the base of the "real" climbing around 4 am. Seth and I decided to hike 1.5 miles up the Longs Peak trail the day before and set up camp in the Goblin's Forest back country camp sight (foreboding name isn't it?) We were in bed by 8 pm with the alarm set for a 2 am wake up call. This is our campsite:



We ate a breakfast of Pop-Tarts and tea by headlamp and set out for a long day. We occasionally passed and were passed by fellow hikers in the dark. Temps were in the high 30s and we were bundled up. Not much conversation was happening other than a warning of a big step up or a toxic breaking of wind (we had black beans and rice for dinner the night before...never again). We stopped only a couple times on our trek to the boulder field to catch our breath, eat a snack or turn off our head lamps and look up at the incredible display of stars. It was so clear and dark that we could make out Orion's bow.

We were making good time and agreed that we didn't want to navigate the boulder field while it was still dark so we decided to tuck in until sunrise when we reached the field. As the first rays of sun brought outlines of rock formations to life we realized that we were more than halfway through the boulder field! Here is a view of the boulder field at sunrise looking back from the Keyhole (we'll get to that in a second) I felt like I was on the surface of the moon:



We did end up finding a rock wall and hunkering down for a few moments to eat and warm up. We had on every stitch of clothing we brought on the trek. that sun could not come up fast enough. Don't we look like this was fun?



Those faces became a bit more serious once we made it through the Keyhole and onto a very different side of the mountain. From our rock enclosure this is the view looking up to the Keyhole:



Our goal was to pick our way up the boulders and go through the notch you can see in the dark rock in the back ground. We made it through and with 40 mph winds blasting through that notch this was the view of the other side:





The second photo is looking to the left once we stepped through the Keyhole. It is a section of the climb called the Ledges. You can make out the red and yellow "target" painted on the rock. This was the trail we were to follow as we picked our way along the rock ledge. Here we are standing on the Ledges:





Seth's first comment when we came to this part of the climb was "Hello exposure!" and he wasn't kidding. Stepping through the Keyhole was like entering a different world between the wind and the steep drop off. I sat down, looked at my knees (anywhere but down!) and composed myself. While I was putting on my game face 3 other guys came through the Keyhole. The first popped his head through and said, "Sweet!" The second, "Oh man! Check it out." the third, "Holy crap." and proceeded to slump down on the rock next to me and hug his knees to his chest. I'm fairly sure he would have also rocked back and forth in a self soothing motion if it didn't pose the risk of pitching himself off a 3,000 ft. cliff. I looked at him and said, "Take you're time. I'm in no hurry here. Let's just breathe."

We got up and began picking our way along the Ledges. Truth be told it wasn't that bad...except for this one part which was pretty sketchy. It involved an overhanging rock and another rock that jutted out over the drop off. Seth lead the way and was a wonderful leader. He talked me through every move and reassured me that we could go back anytime. We had come so far that I didn't want to throw in the towel just yet and I managed to copy the move another guy did and get past it.

Again, the ledges weren't that bad...except for this other "one part" that came up. It was a 10 ft. slab of smooooooooth rock that you had to wedge your foot into and scramble up. Seth made it to the top, turned back to me and said, "Ok babe, this one is kind of sketchy. I think you can do it but you don't have to." I made a few attempts but couldn't find a good foot hold. then I started thinking, "We are going to have to do all of this BACKWARDS on the way home. I don't know about this." I looked up at Seth and he mouthed to me, "I wouldn't mind going back."

Done. Let's get off this crazy mountain.

Here is the turn back point with Seth on his way down backwards (like I said, he was fantastic):



The view looking back through the Keyhole on our return:



When he got back down, I'm not gonna lie to you, we hugged. Then we began picking our way back along the Ledges and it was slow going. We made the right choice for us that day but I am impressed by how many people don't turn back. Once down in the boulder field we stopped for another snack and were attacked by a band of marmots.



Perhaps attacked is too strong of a word but these little buggers were clearly used to people and human food. We set a Ziploc bag with Cliff bars inside and heard it being dragged off the rock behind us only to turn around and see this guy running off with our lunch!

On our way back down we decided to take a detour and see Chasm Lake. It was a short side trail that lead to a snow fed lake sitting below longs peak. In the photo below I'm looking out at the lake and you can see Longs Peak right in front of me.



Overall we had a great day of 12 plus hours of hiking with some sketchy moments and opportunities to push beyond personal comfort zones. In the end we went back to camp together. Still married. Still alive. Still having fun.

Pike's Peak

Donuts on Pike's Peak
Originally uploaded by SethTri

After spending a day in Boulder, we had a few days before we were supposed to head over to Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP). So, we went down to Colorado Springs and knocked off Pike's Peak (14,115 ft). It was Meg's first time hiking up to 14,000+ ft. Pike's Peak is a very popular, fairly easy fourteener, so it was a good confidence booster before we hit up the more challenging Long's Peak later this week.

We already had plans to meet up with our buddy Stephen at 5pm in Boulder on Saturday, so we started our ascent of Pike's Peak at 6am. The plan was summit by 12:30, pick up the 12:40 train down so we can hit the road by 2:30 and be up in Boulder by 4:30pm. The plan worked, but the timeframe required pushing the pace a bit. It wasn't terribly fast, but it was definitely higher than a comfortable pace.

The weather was very good until the very end. The last 5-10 minutes we had a few flurries and a little cloud-to-cloud lightning but generally sunny skies through the hike. Meg got her donut at the top.




I should add the previous afternoon, we hiked a bit in the Garden of the God's. It's a beautiful place, and I played around with the camera on different settings. You can see all of our photos from there, here.

Random Locations, Random Photos

Devil's Tower
Originally uploaded by SethTri

So some of this is out of order, but I wanted to get some photos up.

After Badlands National Park, we went to Devil's Tower in Wyoming. Apparently the tower was made when magma was pushed up into a cavity of rock and cooled. The surrounding rock was eventually eroded leaving the harder basalt to remain. It was the first National Monument and has a lot of history with Native Americans throughout the region. We managed to run most of the trails in the area during the one night we were there and pulled out.





After Devil's Tower we went down to Nebraska and checked off a bunch of other parks. Agate Fossil Beds was a little dull, but we were surprised that Scott's Bluff was interesting. It was a major crossroads during the Oregon Trail and pony express years. One hundred years later you can still see the imprints of where the wagons went through.

Boulder, CO

On Thursday afternoon we pulled into Boulder, CO to begin the extended Colorado portion of our cross country adventure. We also used this day to take care of errands and pick up supplies...namely new running shoes.

As we drove through town on our way to check in at the Boulder International Hostel where we crashed for the night we were both scanning the local businesses for a running store. Being in the Mecca of trail running, mountain biking and outdoor activity we knew one couldn't be far away.

At Boulder Running Company we monopolized the time of a very knowledgeable salesman as we tried on 4-5 different pairs of trail running shoes each. Seth was also in the market for a new road shoe so he took extra time. After test driving a plethora of pairs we made our picks (Seth really wasted the poor guy's time because he ended up buying the same shoes he always wears in a newer model.)

We then took our new kicks out for a trail test with the Boulder Trail Running Club. Seth was a great co-pilot on the drive to Boulder and was feverishly searching on his iPhone for all sorts of cool stuff for us to do in Boulder. He found this trail running club that has Happy Hour runs on Thursdays. We joined the group for a 45 minute run on local trails followed by dinner and $2 beers at a local Nepali restaurant called Sherpa's. We met great folks and ate delicious food.

Years ago when I was in grad school at AU I attended a workshop out here with the Colorado School Mediation Project and had been recommended to try the Boulder-Dushanbe Teahouse. After dinner Seth and I walked to the teahouse for dessert and tea.

Dushanbe, Tajikistan is Boulder's sister city. To celebrate the establishment the sister city ties more than 40 artisans in several cities of Tajikistan created the decorative elements of the Teahouse from 1987 -1990, including its hand-carved and hand-painted ceiling, tables, stools, columns, and exterior ceramic panels. The entire teahouse was constructed in Dushanbe, then disassembled, crated and shipped to Boulder where it was reassembled. We sat outside last night along a gurgling stream and sipped vanilla nut rooibos herbal tea and tangerine ginger bread. Seth, not being much for tea,
had a glass of wine instead.

On our walk back to the Hostel we passed what can only be described as an impromptu bicycle rave at the band shell of a town park. 30-50 bicyclists had gathered after dark with glow sticks stuck in their spokes and jammed to 70's style tunes. Seth even spotted a couple unicycles.

Boulder is the quintessential college town and we stayed right in the heart of it. Coffee shops and tattoo parlors abound in this haven for people watching. We were passed on the road by an old BMW convertible packed with 19 year-old guys whose license plate read "OOHYEAH". The windows of our hostel room faced Sigma Pi's fraternity house. I had forgotten what a party night Thursdays were in college.

I must admit that we are reveling in the excellent coffee this morning, after weeks of the signature gas station blend, as we prepare to head south to The Garden of the Gods and Pike's Peak, which we will climb tomorrow. I, for one, am snickering at the young students sipping their morning lattes over a calculus text book. It is good to be done with that...wait a second...

They weren't kidding when they named this park

Badlands National Park. We pulled into Badlands National Park (BNP) on a day when temps were pushing for 100F. The next morning we would find out that they set a record for never dropping below 80F at night. Couple that heat with a high wind and it felt like a constant hairdryer. 3 days here?Really? Maybe we'll leave this place tomorrow morning. (We wound up staying for 2 days.)

Despite the weather (not uncommon for this time of year) the scenery was quite impressive. Rivers and rain have eroded the landscape to the way it is today. The wall of sedimentary rock is very soft and it has fared better than the lower lands simply by luck of being farther away from historic rivers. There are many "badlands" in the United States (TRNP, Death Valley to name a few).






We were surprised to find all the trails to be in one part of the park and most were very short. Most National Parks have large regulations about staying on trails, even for the backcountry hikers. Not the BNP. It is one of the last parks to allow visitors free reign to hike/climb wherever they want to. Land navigation is certainly a challenge and there are no water sources in the park, but for those who want freedom of movement and adventure BNP has it.

Badlands continues to be a huge source of fossils and many are found by visitors. The "Big Pig Dig" started by a visitor spotting one bone sticking out of the landscape. They reported it to the Park Service as they are supposed to and the palentologists expected it to take 5-7 days to extract the bone for study. Fifteen years and over 10,000 bones later the "Big Pig Dig" will keep scientists busy for another decade identifying all the fossils.





It's an interesting place and I thought it was beautiful on it's own rights, even though we did find it at it's most inhospitable.