Duke the Dog

We had a hearing today in Anchorage to decide Duke's fate for the immediate future.  Kara and I testified by phone and Tim, Karen and Chris Jung were there in person along with our hero and lawyer Laura.  The Judge ruled in our favor, due in no small part to Laura, and it was like a giant weight lifting off my chest to know that Duke would be traveling south with Karen in September.  I think that we may rearrange our plans a bit so we can meet Karen and the dogs sooner rather than later.  We're just both so happy that it worked out.  Next thing that happens is that we go to trial to determine permanent ownership, but that is months out at the soonest.  A huge thank you to Laura for all her hard work on this.

Old Friends

We were extremely fortunate that Brent, Lisa and Miles and Chet, Megan and the dogs were all in the area and that Kara's good friends Mary Kay and Terry let us stay in their amazing new house.  It was pretty smoky from the wildfires so we didn't get to explore McCall as much as we wanted, but we had a wonderful time just hanging out and catching up.

Pierre's Hole 100

Pierre's Hole bike race didn't quite go as planned.  It started out good enough, I was riding with the leaders and feeling good.  At the first aid station I saw Kara on the sidelines, she had double flatted and walked about 3 miles back to the start.  By the end of lap 1 my back had given in, but I tried to push it for a little longer, only to be forced to walk those same 3 miles back to the start.  The pic is from us camping the night before the race.

McCall is Amazing

We are currently hanging out in McCall at Mary Kay & Terry's amazing house. So nice to he relaxing and enjoying the most beautiful home ever.

Boise is hot

Camped out on the north fork of the Boise river before heading into town to run errands and see Brandi Carlile in concert.  We got laundry done, fixed a slow leak on the van tire and found out that the AC was going to cost $600 to fix.  Then we went to the concert which was great.  All the while it was over 100 degrees.  That's hot, too hot.

We decided to push on to Twin Falls after the concert and got caught up in the best lighting storm that I have ever had the pleasure of driving through.  I thought we might get blown off the road, or struck by lightning, or washed away in the torrential downpour.  But we made it to the little town of Jerome just west of Twin Falls and got a room.

It was an eventful day.

Mackay ID

We were pretty tired of driving on the way to Boise so stopped to find a place to camp out.  Headed up into the hills outside of Mackay and found this really cool old ghost town.  It was an old mining town called White Knob.  We had to do a little off road rally driving to get up to it but once there you can just wander around.

Driggs, Victor and Grand Targhee

This place is awesome!  The trails are amazing and both little towns are fun and vibrant places to hang out.  We got in touch with Tracy and Jay and got a beer and then joined them for dinner.  Tracy is indeed an excellent cook.  Now on to Boise!

Tetons and Jackson WY

We spent the night in Teton park, headed to Jackson for a bit, took a ride on Teton pass and finally camped out near Driggs ID.

Yellowstone day 2 and Tetons

Getting a little behind on the posts, I'll try to catch up soon

Tetons!

So beautiful I can't even express it. Wow!

John & cool stuff

Here are some pics of John and really great stuff we saw while out and about.

Crazy park stuff

So we got caught in this traffic jam in yellowstone and it was for one elk. It was crazy and they even had a park ranger directing traffic. Crazy!

Yellowstone day 1

Photos.