Dog Jog

First of all, this is my 100th blog post! Thanks to everyone for reading and encouraging me to keep putting nonsense and pictures of my dog on the internet.

Speaking of dogs, yesterday Andy and I did the "Dog Jog," which is a benefit for Friends of Pets, a local animal rescue organization.  We saw a commercial for it on the news and signed up without knowing much about it.  We got totally sucked in by the fact that it was happening less than a mile from our house at Andy's old high school.

When we first got to the school, it didn't look like much was going on, but we headed up to the parking lot and it was a full on dog party!

Our first stop was the free bandanas.  We tried to find one that was somewhat masculine, which was difficult.  Ripley didn't mind.

They set up kiddie pools all over the place.  Ripley only wanted to drink from them, but some dogs hopped right in:

And so did a couple of babies:

There were all kinds of dogs there.  Some even had costumes:

Most of the dogs were pretty playful:

Some looked like horses:

Some were tiny:

They even had a kissing booth!

After we checked out all the booths and got our goodie bag (which was full of dog treats), we headed down to the field to start the race.  Andy and I decided to do the 5k and figured Ripley would probably get worn out fairly soon.  Most people just did the one mile walk.

Here's a picture of everyone parading down the hill before the race:

These were the runners.  I didn't get pictures of the crowd that was walking, but picture much smaller dogs and much larger people (for the most part...I ran next to a toy poodle for most of the race, which might say something about my current fitness level).

That little black dog ran the whole thing.  I was proud of him.

Then - the race! I didn't take any pictures because as soon as they let us start running, Ripley tore off like a bat out of hell and he and Andy sprinted through the whole course.  I ran faster than I normally would have but I never caught up to them.  I think Andy and Ripley finished in the top 5 (so much for it being too strenuous for him).  The race wasn't very official - we didn't have numbers or anything and there wasn't even a clock running.  A woman who ran up with Andy said the course was only 2.5 miles according to her pedometer, which isn't even a whole 5k.  Still, it was a good workout.

After the race, we watched some people do a flyball demonstration, which, as far as I can tell, is an activity you do with your dog if your dog is totally crazy.  Ripley would hate flyball.

Part of the demonstration was showing that any dog can do it, including this tiny yorkie:

Most of the dogs doing flyball were border collies, which fits in pretty well with my theory about crazy dogs:

All in all, it was a really fun event.  We donated some money to a good cause and we got a little exercise.  I think we'll make this an annual event! 

Hidden Lake

Yesterday we went on another hike with our friends Ann and Steve (and their friend Sara(h)...we didn't get to the "do you spell your name with or without an 'H'?" phase of getting to know one another yet, so we'll go with Sarah).  Enough time had passed that we had forgotten about the horrible bushwhacking experience that was the low key hike, and we decided to trust our new friends (Ann and Andy are old friends, but they're new to me) to take us back into the wilderness.

The destination was Hidden Lake, a trail we actually kind of "found" when we were out walking along Powerline Pass.  I checked it out online and people reviewed it as a fairly simple roughly 8 mile roundtrip hike, which seemed perfect for a Sunday.

The trail started with an easy two mile walk along Powerline Pass.  The weather was perfect for hiking!

The monkshood is blooming! I love it, even if it is extra poisonous.

After about two miles, which passed so quickly with friends to chat with and a dog to yell at constantly for eating grass, we came to the hidden lake turnoff, which is easy to spot because there's a cute little bridge to cross.  Just before you come to the bridge there are bike racks where you can lock a bike up and do the hike.  Biking the flat two miles at the beginning and the end seemed like a brilliant idea.  Too bad we don't have any bikes...

Right around the bridge was a HUGE meadow of cotton grass.  It was absolutely beautiful.

Once you cross the river, the hiking starts.  It wasn't very strenuous, but it was a good workout for about two more miles.

Once we got above the trees, we were awarded with some great views of the mountains.  Here's sleeping lady:

And the mountains further down Powerline Pass.  Steve said the one on the right is Ptarmigan Peak.

Did I mention the scenery was beautiful?  IT WAS BEAUTIFUL.  We followed a little creek for much of the hike.

Basically we just went up and up, and we hiked like normal people.  We followed the trail, we didn't walk through a swamp, we didn't see any crazy moose and we had some good (sometimes inappropriate) conversation the whole way up.  It was a GREAT DAY.

The farther up we got, the better the view.  Here you can see the Alaska Range in the background, which is all the way across Cook Inlet from Anchorage.

We kept going up and were a little worried that the lake was punking us.  There IS a lake somewhere right?  The sign said there was a lake...

We saw a little lake.  It seemed too small to be "the" lake.

Finally we went up over one more ridge and we found the lake! It was really well hidden (good name, lake-namers!)

Ripley immediately went swimming.  He's not stupid.

The lake was the most beautiful emerald green color.  I love hikes with a good payoff at the end!

Steve even took photos of us.  He took about 45, this one was the best.

We all got snacks at the top, too, including some delicious "enrobed mangoes" that Ann got at Costco.  Internet poll: is "enrobed" a word?  Andy says no, Steve says yes.  I'm too lazy to google it.

Ripley pretended to be nice to everyone, but he really just wanted some of Ann's granola bar.

We saw hikers up along the ridge.  I don't think you can see them clearly unless you blow up the photo. Also, I didn't use any filter on the camera.  The sky was really that blue.  I think Alaska has the best skies of anywhere I've ever been.

After we refueled and Ripley did a few laps, we headed back down.  This time we got to enjoy the view the whole way.

Ripley found more water and just ran around in it.

Kind of like what Steve did when he found the snow.  Who is this guy?!

I found some more flowers to photograph.  Captions for mom!

Capitate Valerian/Mountain Heliotrope

Sitka Burnet

Douglas Aster

I think(?) it's some kind of Anemone.  I've been through the wildflower book three times and can't figure it out...

Western Columbine

Eventually we made it back to the bridge and the cotton grass.  I took about 50 pictures just from this spot.  Amazing. 

Look! We're ALL SMILES at the end of this hike.  Success! We're back on the trust train with Ann and Steve. I think Ann's happy about it, too, especially because she won't have to listen to me tell everyone at work about how she almost killed me over the weekend.  Our other coworkers are afraid to hang out with her outside of work now.  

Postcard? Photograph?

On the way back up Powerline, we spotted a friend:

A giant black bear near Blueberry Hill! Sorry the picture looks like bigfoot - I was playing with the image to blow it up and the contrast got all weird.  But, I think you get the idea.  This is the first bear I've seen around Flattop, which was pretty cool (especially since he was far away).

Even though the weather was awesome, the company was fun and the hike didn't kill us, the best part of the day was the post-hiking Mexican food and margaritas with the gang.  We're easy to please.

Where to next??