Breakin the law!

Wow! Its been a long time since I posted anything! So sorry I've been incognito, but its really not my fault...its Moms.

She went on this vacation a couple of weeks back, and was gone for a whole 3 weeks! She went somewhere very far away and had to take 2 planes to get there. She said the places were called Spain and Portugal, and when she came back all she brought me was a dumb bandana. I'm sure she'll post some pictures from her trip, lets just hope she doesn't post all of them! She took over 30G of pictures while she was there!!

So,enough about that, I'm sure you want to hear about my law breaking adventure!

There's a building here in Sandy Eggo called The Salk Institute of Biological Sciences. Basically, its a fancy schmancy building known for its architecture and the folks who work on it get to study all kinds of sciency things.

Mom's been wanting to take me up there for a while now to get some pictures, so on Sunday we headed up there with a few friends....not knowing exactly what we'd find.

When we got there we discovered the building itself was close!! Luckily, there was a cool fountain/waterfall feature at the back of the building that we could take pictures on.

Our Mom's made us sit and stay while my Mom took pictures. We were all pretty good, including Gigi...the youngest of the group who had was celebrating her 1 year old birthday on Sunday!!

Mirabella, the Kerry Blue Terrier, was the best stayer of the group. Gigi kept breaking her stay, and as soon as she moved so would Ginger & I. Mira stayed still the entire time!

There was also a block wall overlooking the ocean, so of course we had to sit there too. It was a hot day in Sandy Eggo, so my tongue is huge!

Then we found this big grassy area! Of course, Mom made us take some pictures there too. By this time, Gigi was tired of staying so just us more 'mature' dogs had to do a stand stay.

Then Mom took some pictures of Gigi in her show dog pose. She's already gotten a number of points towards her championship and 'strikes a pose' quite nicely.

Ginger hung out and enjoyed the sun.

After the photos we got some free time to do some running! Gigi kept chasing me all over, I think she had a crush!

While we were running around having fun, one of the scientists who works at Salk walked by and watched us play. Mom said "hi" to him and asked about going into the building. He said it was closed on the weekend, but if we wanted he would let us in. Heck ya!!

He used his security badge to let us in and said 'goodbye...if someone asks, I didn't let you in, ok?" :)

We were able to get a few photos overlooking the ocean, but the lighting was tough since it was getting close to sunset.

Mom then decides to make us all straddle the concrete stream running down the middle of the courtyard. She posed us and started snapping pictures. She was able to get a number of photos, and when she released us to check them out on her camera, she noticed a security guard had come up behind her. BUSTED!!

He told us the institute was close and that no dogs were allowed, and then asked us how we got in. Mom made up a story (aka. LIED!) and said one of the side doors wasn't latched. heehee! We didn't want our scientist friend to get in trouble!

Luckily the security guard was super nice and just escorted us out. Mom ended up getting this picture, but the lighting was horrible so she played a little bit in "BeFunky" and this was the end result.

Wordless Wednesday

why yes, I am comfortable...thanks for asking!

As pretty as a Poppy!

This little gal came to stay with us last night. Its been 3 weeks since Cassie moved on to find her forever home, and Mom's been keepin her eye out for another girl that would fit into our household.

Since the house isn't big, we can't take on too big of a dog. Plus, I've gotten to be kind of a butthead with certain big dogs. Typically boys more so than girls, but I'm always a gentlemen with the little ladies so that's the 'profile' Mom typically looks for.

In addition, they need to get along with kitTONs. That's not always easy to tell since these are all dogs that are being pulled from high kill shelters where they have no exposure to kitTONs, but for some reason Mom can usually tell from their eyes. She looks for a dog with 'soft' eyes, no intense looks. So far that seems to be working pretty well!

Poppy is ~8 months old and is already spayed, microchipped & fully vaccinated. At first, she wasn't sure what the small fluffy things were, but she quickly got accustomed to them and learned they were pretty much "OK". Even Fergie kitTON seemed to like her!!

She'll be staying with us til she gets adopted, but Mom doesn't think that will take long. Just look at that face!

She's kinda filthy, so she'll be getting a bath tomorrow and we'll find out what her true colors are. She looks like she's kind of beige, with a few apricot spots. It will be fun to see what happens when the grime comes off!

Welcome Poppy!!

Never Forget

Sandy Eggo Sunset

The sky had lots of clouds...just the kind that make for a beautiful sunset, so Mom loaded me in the car and we headed to a park which she knew had a great view of the skyline.

Too many people there & too many off leash dogs, so after a quick change of plans we changed direction and headed toward the ocean.

Mom put the pedal to the metal cuz the sun was not gonna wait for us to set. The sky kept getting prettier and prettier...but we weren't there yet!! Finally, pulled into a spot in the bay, flew out of the car & started snappin shots.

She wanted me to tell you, these are all straight out of the camera...no editing other than some cropping.

look what was in the rocks just about 10 feet away from us!! There's a whole colony of feral cats that live in the rocks on the jetty. 80 or 90 was the last count Mom heard. This one looks a lot like Fergie kitTON and was curious about what we were doing so he(she?) came closer to see what was going on.

She was camouflaged really well by the rocks and at first I didn't even notice her....but I could smell her!!

Mom was super proud of me though, cuz even though I knew she was there somewhere, I 'stayed' the entire time she told me to.

In this shot, she's just in front of me...about 5 feet away. She'd tucked herself into some of the crevices and I still couldn't see her.

Boy, are we lucky to live in such a beautiful place! The only thing that woulda made it better was a dip in that nice ocean!

Wordless Wednesday

Mammoth Lakes Getaway

Last weekend Mom ditched me. She ditched me for a getaway to a place called Mammoth Lakes, Ca. its about 7 hours North of Sandy Eggo. There are lots of lakes and LOTs of really really big mountains. The kind of mountains that make big ole me look puny!

Anyway, I had to stay home while she went and played with some friends...she thought you might enjoy seeing the pictures. Mom will take it from here...

I drove up Thursday afternoon and mountain biked on Friday. It was so much fun, but boy did it kick my butt! Even though most of it was downhill, the little bit of pedalling we did was tough because we were at elevation of about 9000 feet. I'm used to being at sea level!!

Beatiful view on the drive up

Wooly Mammoth

Gondola ride to the top

its a long way down!

Mom with the Minarets behind her. So gorgeous!

just a portion of the group that went biking with Mom

After biking all day on Friday, I decided to spend Saturday hiking around the area. I went to the Devil's Postpile, and then hiked about 2.5 miles to a beautiful waterfall. It was pretty hot out (close to 90 degrees) and I couldn't believe all the families who were hiking without any water. There was even an older couple who had a 12 year old Akita with them...and they didn't have any water for the dog! I ended up giving her a nice cool drink from my camelbak and I think she would have rather gone home with me!

Devil's Postpile

Devil's Postpile

Devil's Postpile

Hexagon's...courtesy of Mother Nature

There were TONS of trees down along the hike. According to the ranger, last year they had a wind event in the area and for a period of several hours they sustained winds of over 100 mph. It was so sad to see all the trees that were victims of that event. Huge pine trees uprooted and lying on their sides.

We also hiked through a section that had a bad wildfire in 1992. I was really surprised at how little regrowth of the trees there were.

At the end of the hike we stopped at Rainbow Falls. It was beautiful and when we hiked to the bottom the mist was a nice way to cool off.

Rainbow Falls

There were a LOT of people at the falls, so unfortunately it wasn't very relaxing but it was still gorgeous!

Lucky for us, the Perseids Meteor show was happening while we were there. It was the perfect viewing location, nice and dark with not very many city lights. I took my camera out and got lucky enough to get a couple of pictures!

Sunday, we headed back to San Diego...but first we stopped by Twin Lakes for a short walk and some more photo ops.

It was such a fun trip! Can't wait to go back...and next time Murphy will definitely get to come with me, it was a super dog friendly area!