Vehicle Dilema & Other Stuff

Driving Shady around to our hiking spots has not been fun. She is not a good car dog. She paces back and forth between the back and front seats on our way to the trail, and on our way home she parks herself on the center console in front of the air conditioning and slobbers on my arm. It has become so bad that I have been thinking of getting a new car. My current car is 6 years old and my plan has been to keep it for 10, but I've been thinking about how nice it would be to have a small SUV, station wagon, or cross over with back seats that I could fold flat and fix the cargo area for coonhound transport. I liked the look of a lot of different vehicles, but I wanted something priced under $20,000 and with decent gas mileage. The two that seemed to best fit my criteria were the Pontiac Vibe and the Suzuki SX4. I spent several weeks looking at them on line and I had almost convinced myself to go out and start shopping but in the end I decided that a $30 barrier was the more practical way to go.

All of the barriers that I found at PetsMart and Petco were designed for SUVs and vans, but I found this little thing on the Internet and it works great. I do feel a little bit like I'm in prison when I look into the rear-view mirror, but hopefully I will get used to that.

I also had to purchase a new barbeque grill because my old grill caught on fire. The lines that brought the propane in from the tank were corroded or something, and fire started shooting out of them last time I lit the grill. I went to Wal-Mart and they had this grill on sale for $10. I am now learning to cook with charcoal, and while it does take longer than gas the flavor is much better.

I have also been looking for new places to hike with the coonhound where I haven't yet spotted any rattle snakes. One of JoLyn's co-workers suggested the ravine across from Valley View golf course so we went over there the other evening to check it out.

When you first come down from the road you get a view of the pond to the east and the ravine to the west, and both views are very pretty, although this wasn't the best view of the ravine.

Unfortunately my camera battery died because I had wanted to get a better shot on my way out.

Once you get down and start walking around the pond you realize what pigs people who fish are. (That would be po' people without boats, Nate. JoLYN! Pick up your trash!) There is trash everywhere. Mostly beverage, bait, and cigarette containers.

Skinny-dipping teenagers are also pigs. In this area I counted at least 10 pair of underwear in this area along with other miscellaneous trash.

Kids have also built a fort down in the ravine. I would loved to have played there when I was a kid.

When you walk around to the East side of the pond it gets really gross. Along with the trash the place is covered in cobwebs and cotton.

I wasn't too worried about snakes here, but I did think that this was a place where giant man-eating spiders and/or chupacabras would like to live.

I don't often get nervous when I am out hiking, but this place did give me the creeps. I don't know that I will make this one of our regular routes.

Beware of Pit Vipers!

The heat is on now, and the rattlesnakes have come out in full force. I had my first encounter of the year three weeks ago. The snake was on the trail and Shady was off romping through the weeds to the side of the trail so we were able to get around it without incident.

Our second encounter was a week later. Shady was running down the trail about 30 feet ahead of me when I saw her skid to a stop and heard the hissing and rattling of the snake right in front of her. After that I decided that I needed to look into getting her vaccinated against rattlesnakes. The vaccine doesn't make a bite harmless, but it does give you time to get the dog treatment. My internet research indicates that the vaccine is quite controversial, but I think that the benefits outweigh the risks for a dog who loves to hike. Since Eric doesn't keep the vaccine in stock we had to give him some time to aquire it and Shady has an appointment on Thursday.

Yesterday we took our usual morning hike and we encountered THREE rattlesnakes! Three in one day has left me really paranoid and in quite a quandry. Shady loves to hike, and it is so easy to just let her off leash to run. Even though she does know how to heel she doesn't like it, and she doesn't get nearly as much excercise when we walk through town. I want to hike but I don't want my dog to be killed by a snake. I hate pit vipers!

An Erie Weekend

I arrived in Erie late Friday afternoon to enjoy the hospitality of the Barnes Resort. We were having a nice evening until, sometime around ten o'clock, we lost the Baby. As Ang has already posted about that ordeal I will not add much except to say that much more than the weekend would have been ruined if we hadn't recovered her, and I absolutely cannot believe that we found her. When Nate drove us over to see where he and Liv found her I couldn't even believe that they were searching that far away. Baby had better never put us through that again!

On Saturday we went to dinner at what we like to call Smuggler's Dwarf on Gobbler's Knob. That may not be its real name, but we are sticking with it.

Liv and I took pictures of each other. You can be the judge on who won that photography contest!

Lex was being her usual photo phobic self, so all I got were a couple of photos of the back of her head.

This photo is to taunt my mother and the Beaver with the delicious she crab soup that they missed out on. Sorry about your luck!

I had to take a photo of these festively patriotic ladies waiting for a table at the restaurant. Notice that the cane has both a horn and a rear-view mirror attached to it.

After dinner we drove over to Presque Isle to walk along the beach and look for beach glass. Nate found the first piece of beach glass, but I found the most.

We were planning to watch fireworks on Presque Isle, but after our walk we still had some time before dark, so we drove back to a little burger stand called Sara's at the entrance to Presque Isle for some ice cream, then we went back to find a spot to watch the fire works.

Apparently we didn't pick a very good spot from which to watch. We got a few glimpses of far-away fireworks through the trees. The funniest part was that the very second the fireworks ended people were revving their engines and racing to get out of there. The second funniest part was that, as we got back to Sara's we found another big firework display being launched from the park next door. If we had stayed there to enjoy our ice cream we would have had front row seats to a really good firework display. Better luck next year!

On Sunday we decided to drive out to Lake Chautauqua. Some neighbors had told Angie to go out to a little village called Bemus Point to enjoy the lakes and some quaint little shops. We drove through the town which was packed with tourists and no parking anywhere and we decided to try something else. We drove back toward Erie a few miles and stopped at a little place on the lake called the Chautauqua Institution. This gated community houses about 400 year-round residents and in the summer it also houses several thousand summer visitors in cottages, hotels, and condos. They host a summer lecture series as well as ballet, symphony, and opera performances. It is a cool little place, but we didn't really know what to do there other than walk around and buy ice cream. The houses are all beautiful.

We stopped for a little while at the tiny beach. Literally the entire beach was captured in this photograph. We decided this is a lake for boaters, not for beach goers.

Everyone needed to take a little rest in the grass to regain their strength.

Later that evening we stopped at the race track and watched a couple of horse races. I was unable to pick a winning horse either by going with the prettiest one or the one who looked the most muscular. Lex picked the winner on the first race, and Liv picked the winner on the second race.

On the way home from the race track we saw a groundhog sitting in a yard. Now that I have seen a live, wild groundhog all of my dreams have come true and I can die happy.

Thanks for a great weekend, Barnes family!

Hiking

For the past couple of weeks I have been hiking every day up a wickedly steep canyon just south of Baer Canyon. I don't know the name of this canyon, but there is a dirt road that goes up it. The road is so steep I don't know how vehicles manage to navigate it. Nate, this canyon is right above the neighborhood where you used to live. Do you know what it is called?

I tried to take a picture that would show how steep the road is, but none of them really did it justice. I was hoping that I could lose some weight if I hiked this every day, but so far I've had no success.

The road ends in this pretty grove of pine trees. I love the silvery green ground cover under the trees. I'm told that once the road end it connects to a trail that leads down into Baer Canyon, but I can't find the trail, so I just go back down the way I came up.

I also enjoy all of the wildflowers along the way. Thanks to Mom, Rick, and Rick's dad for the new camera. It is much better than the old one, and it doesn't need duct tape to hold it together.

This Makes Me Angry

Honestly, need I say more? What kind of sick and twisted person would do this to an innocent shrubbery? Luckily this house is not on my street. If I had to look at this every day I'm afraid I would have to take some kind of action that would probably be illegal.

Reflections on Mexico

Nate, I don't think that anyone ever answered your question about the name of the resort. We stayed at the Wyndham Cozumel. It was okay for our purposes, but I would never go back. The rooms were okay, and the beds were actually the best I've ever experienced in Mexico, but the food left a great deal to be desired. I think if we had taken the whole family most of them would have starved at this resort. It's not necessarily that the food was bad, there was just no selection to choose from, and it didn't vary from day to day. I have never seen such a small buffet at one of these places before. We wondered if it was so limited because there were so few people there, but I really couldn't see where they would have put anything more if it had been available.

The freaky thing about this trip was that there were hardly any people there. I doubt that our resort was even half full, and when we walked up the beach on Monday there was NOBODY in sight! The Carlos and Charlie's bar and shops were open, but there were only a couple of other people wandering through. We passed another public beach area with shops and restaurants that was completely closed down, and a national park beach area where we saw three people in the water and not a soul on the beach. I don't know if it was because of the swine flu, the economy, the violence in Mexico, or a combination of all three, but it was kind of spooky. There did seem to be a few more people there on the day that we left.

Next time I will definitely purchase trip insurance to cover weather-related airport closures, and I will NOT fly American Airlines. They were a nightmare on every single leg of our trip, both coming and going. I will also be hoping that more of you will be in a position to join us next time!

Hello from Mexico

Buenos dias, amigos! Yesterday Mom was in search of a new snorkle mask. They didn't have any for sale at our resort, so we took a walk down the beach to find one somewhere else.


On the way back we passed Carlos and Charlies. I am still giggling over the sign.























We each had to have our pictures taken on the swing with the giant fish.


Later in the day we took a "Booze Cruise" to go snorkling at two different reefs. Our captain, Carlos, was very good at steering the boat with his feet. He could also steer with his feet while lying down, but we didn't get a picture of that.

Our cruise photographer was a Johnny Depp wannabe. He could also steer the boat with his feet, and you could tell that he thought he was real hot stuff.

Here are some random shots of the water.

We enjoyed this cloud. We thought it bore a striking resemblance to a beaver.

I'd type more, but we are afraid the buffet might close before we get our second dinner. Adios!