Training Log Archive: Yukon King

excellent orienteering for Dennis, four days' worth! starting with Mount Laurie map. G and I watched out for bears.

Mary's road-trip also starts - see cancerchick.com. You can read how to play COW Beth-style on her (lead-up) entry for August 22...

off to Barebones in Canmore ! wheeeee !

over to Metrotown on the train to (1) return a book (2) pay library fine (3) pay off mortgage (4) recycle aluminum cans (5) stock up for trip to Rockies. Couldnt get my stiff (air-dried to save energy) black jeans to button so had to go pay off mortgage w/ pants not done up, very annoying to have such gympy hands. Luckily it occurred to me to put on a belt to at least conceal not-done-up-ness. Smart !
Also did blackberry harvesting loop w/ G-dog around 1pm, having suffered only minor conseqences thus far from attempts to OD on blackberries...no dogs encountered.
Time for free-trade organic darjeeling tea & Jurgen Goethe on the radio. Pants now done up.

C • blackberries 1

C • i always air dry my clothes, e... 1

standard visit to Taylor Park, G-dog content now & heads right for our bench, settles in the shade, & chomps her biscuit. Since I suffered only minimal repercussions from huge blackberry ingestion at Stewart Farm BBQ yesterday, I set out to test my cumulative digestive limits. Circled the park & home.
Evening walk she met boyfriends Chevy AND Tischa, boinging around seemed to crank my back a bit, but this following morning seems OK.

after the rainy morning walked the pup around the neighborhood and met every other dog known. Sun got too hot. 1 km. Then we went south to Crescent Beach to the historic farm on the river & had a BBQ - salmon, slabs of onion, halved tomatoes, & zucchini on sticks all done in sesame oil, curry powder, & some mesquite BBQ sprinkle, on a brown rice pilau (raisins, cashews, lil peas, & similar spices) that I brought along in tinfoil to reheat on the grill. It was yummy, & me N G walked aorund a bit there too after dinner while D took photos.

grey day & so cool I wore two t-shirts. AOWN forests seething w/ teenage squirrels trying to figure it all out. Down the creek path, & then up the whole Stairmaster from Stoneledge. Ate lotsa blackberries esp. behind Belvedere. Yum. G is developing a fetish/collection of skanky balls collected from the wild. She loves them & gnaws them, & has 4 or 5 now, mostly partially fermented luridly green tennis balls. I keep forgetting & letting her give me little doggie kisses in exchange for dogtreats, yuck!!!

over to the park like automatons, G-dog seems to be getting the idea she can still enjoy the same thing every day. Added on a little sidetrip to the Rocks. I bet Gypsy is the only 18.2 lb dog (0.135G) on Attackpoint who has two logs....
(very quietly and discreetly, hidden away here in the Attackpoint underbrush...now that the WOC relay is over & the results are 1:1, is there any American who would like to do the (essentially) matching-funding thing with me - wasn't sure what people would think of the betting aspect, or of the amount.)

about 15 minutes floor, 10 minutes standing.

over to Taylor Park for 70 minutes of meandering & lounging.

evening walk w/ Miss Rangy-Dog down to the parkway & back up Stairmaster, playing w/ Haru the 4 mo japanese spitz, & briefly getting our lil blonde head gnawed by Bruno the boxer, one of G's favorite boyfriends. Feet really hurting, guess I gotta go back to my hi-tech walkers & leave sandals behind...
Also did vet-visit - appears that dog is in fact less itchy & thus is not going to immediately be doused w/ insecticide to treat mites that may or may not be there. I say YAY...(as if insecticide on spec is EVER gonna be happenin' to this ex-scientist's dawg...)

well, since we appear to have created a monster, ie a New Sensations Junkie out of our nice little puppy, she is now restless back at home after 10 days of having a new rain forest, desert, or lake pop up in front of her every time the jeep stopped. She is kinda cranky & disobedient. So, put the training collar back on, focus on obedience, & reinstate two day walks to break up the day a bit more for her. Should work.

two walks & a big afternoon blanket & ball play session to calm G-dog - play worked good, she actually passed out for a few hours, so no afternoon walk. I did the evening walk, met Chevy the pit-bull & did G-dog's (as it turns out) last off-leash session with him on the huge lawns behind Villa Jardin - started with her usual joyous high-speed puppy-loops, but then she did her first Classic Shiba Dash out of sight, thru an open gate & off into coyote land, stopped only by the I-ran-so-I-need-to-poop thing (be glad ya didnt have that thing happening for the film crews, Dr. B) combined w/ having eaten too much grass yesterday on the blackberry expedition, making for the distressing & paralyzing phenomenon known as "Dangly Poo". I caught up to her & we had a little dog rodeo (to remove the Dangly Poo) to the astonishment of some passersby who were pretty sure I was wrestling a (small) coyote in the dusk.
Morning walk to Taylor Park was less eventful, sat in sun & ate a biscuit.

varied meanderings - off to Broadway via the train to visit lawyer briefly, blackberry expedition w/ Christopher & Patrick, picked up vanilla tofu ice-cream (surprisingly good) to go w/ blackberries, trip on train from New West w/ C & P after lunch just so they could ride the skytrain, dog walk, etc... cooked up apricot preserves w/ the kids from the Okanagan apricots.

well, I can't think what loggable activity I did in the last week (has it been that long since I logged?) so it's just a note to say we got back around midnight last night after seeing the tail of a nasty lineup on the Coquihalla toll, so we decided to see if we could hightail it across the ridge to Boston Bar (I think we kinda just didn't wanna go home) so we ended up seeing some heavenly country just north of Prospect Creek that I wanna go back into sometime, busting a tire to pieces & changing it w/ a bear lollygagging about someplace in the woods close by (that was Bear #3), trying another route, & finally going back to the nicely cleared-out Coquihalla just at dusk.
Bear #2 was a very upset lil guy who was trying to get to his mama on the other side of Hwy 97 when we rudely zipped thru on our way from Whistler to Vernon a few days earlier - D saw he successfully got down to mama in the rearview mirror.
Vernon was fun, swam in the lake, went to an outdoor play, drank grape juice on the patio, picked apricots, hot tubbed, barbequed...
our last day (Roche Lake) tanked itself somewhat as rain & lightning (& a serious case of vacation exhaustion on my part) hit the back-country, but having canoed once already on the River of Golden Dreams (can't beat that as a destination, huh?) in Whistler, I'm fine with having just hung out at Roche.
Now I am menu planning for Canmore Barebones and Banff/Yoho canoeing next week!! G-dog is passed out on bed doing her version of vacation exhaustion.

around by the skytrain line & the back side of Taylor Park to check on the blackberries, met Bao, & G-dog ran in circles til she pooped.Then she laid down & rested. I notice that wasn't mentioned on the "Vomit" thread as a good measure of trying hard...

we have a really nice room on the cool side of the hotel, w/ a view of the forest like a chinese painting. rested most of the day, in late afternoon G & G walked down the side of the ski-slopes from Painted Cliffs to Upper Village & then to Main Village, when I met them & then walked all thru people watching etc. Nice day. Walked out twice to the ski-slope from the lodge as well. ALSO, saw a fun show called Mantracker which is like orienteering in Canada (Yukon, Kananaskis-looking area, N Ontario...) but with kind of an extra thing where someone (the Mantracker, a super-cool cowboy-looking ex-SAR guy on a horse) is trying to catch you; the show is designed by an adventure racer. Of course they had picked a pair of mouthy city punks as the "prey" to be extra fun for the TV. I thought it would be cool to have a team of nice intellectual orienteers (in traditional satiny O-pajamas of course) take the Mantracker on, but then I thought if they had any rogaine experience they would just cream the Mantracker. so... no maps, like memory-O? no lights allowed? It does sound like the AR guy does vet the courses pretty carefully to keep it even.
oooh, D & G saw a bear....arrrgghhh...

C • Meteor 1

took lil Miss Rangy-Dog down to the river at the Top Bridge site, back up some mountain bike trails which were insanely steep but we made it. Sea-scouts were O-ing as well.
Had a picnic at Rathtrevor Beach in the sun and wind, then off to the ferry to nap on the way back to the mainland, then up to Whistler for a recovery day on Monday. Got briefly stuck in the end of a major traffic problem on the sea-to-sky, but it took care of itself pretty quick...

wandering around Nymph Falls w/ the G-dog while D ran about looking for controls, scouted picnic area, looked at the pretty step-wise falls, got stomped by dogs, it was fun.
Tuna-pea-whole wheat pasta was loved by me but not D, he ate goat cheese instead.

over to the Island after racing down to South Surrey to get G's saucy lil life-jacket, she looks cute!!! Stopped at Rathtrevor Park to walk her before going to the Skylite Motel to check in, less than a kilometer of fun beach-walking, but I was wiped.
Really yummy organic lamp chorizo w/ chopped tomatoes & a box of Annie's Organic White Cheddar Shells (that means, kraft-mac, but white & virtuous...) Yum!!! quick and easy!

well, I didnt walk very far, but G-dog ran about 3 kilometers! Met a dude from grad school out of the blue walking his dog Sascha, so G got some off-leash time running after alpha-female Sascha & her stick while Will & I caught up on the last eleven years...
prepping for trip to Island tomorrow...thai tofu for dinner.

have to chop the plumeria back to one-foot sticks before we leave for vacation so they can have quiet time to think things over, dunno what thing to use as they are rather big & my garden shears are way too small. Butcher's knife? I think Dennis will have to do it cuz I am not strong enuf.
Downtown on train for banking & sushi w/ Derek this AM.
White-trash origins reign today, smothered chicken, I can detect some common ancestors of the Colonel's "secret recipe" (except of course, the chicken gets "smothered" with milk after it gets fried, & then baked). I can tell you there's paprika, pepper, salt, & rosemary in it...did I ever mention my daddy grew up in a sod-roof shack w/ a rain-barrel for water? I'm sure I did...

C • guess what - living in a sod-r... 2

gah....food-poisoning...but doglet still needed walkies, so out we went (during an "interlude") around the block....gah...dumb ol' restaurants. It was fun to see derek, though.

did afternoon walk in aftermath of misty rain, evening walk as well, each about 1km. had fun w/ Alf (shopping & dimsum) in morning but then felt like cr*p most of afternoon & evening, felt like like lying flat w/ eyes closed, what IS that!? so feeble...

coffee plant getting a bath & groom today...

wandered randomly around the neighborhood mostly NW of Mayfair to practice who-gets-to-choose the route, (mostly) me as it turns out. Thus, I am the leader of the pack, so I get to pick up all the dog toys off the livingroom floor and vacuum up all the Cute-Blonde dog fluff off the (luckily sorta blonde) carpet.
Met chatty lady w/ off-leash boor-dog who was smart enuf (lady not dog) not to try telling me more stuff about how to raise my dog.
tofu, green beans, & a few other organic things w/ Dennis' yummy hoisin-based stirfry sauce. Chilled grapes, tomatoes...now I'm gonna drink some fairtrade darjeeling & rejoice in the sun. Nice breeze. Coffee tree is so happy!

went to Deas Slough to canoe had a great time! first we had quiche & blueberries and visited w/ another shiba inu, then we walked down to Fisher's Field (1.6 km RT, got a coke down there, yum) to see the old car rally (my favorite was a um... red car, dang...) & back, then D put the canoe together & we paddled for 2 hours up past the marina & down an Amazon-jungle-like tributary & back, met Keith & had our BBQ, got home around 8:45pm, just a touch too much of sun, I think, despite a mighty cute sunhat & SPF 24 on nose.

Tamarind is behaving so well, pulled it out of jungleroom and it's all gorgeous and new growth everywhere, so I rewarded it w/ a bath, some top-dressing, AND some fertilizer, now it looks even happier. Plumeria are leggy, will consider cutting back... if only guava & pomegranate would behave a bit better...poor things, they really are not the best pot-plants for north of 48.

pretty warm today so we headed in very lesurely fashion for the woods, down the bike path, parkway & up the top bit of stairmaster. Took over an hour & a half. Met Eight Ball's owners who are scouting real estate, & played alot w/ Tischa, G banged her chin pretty hard on the asphalt trying to take too tight a turn & losing it. Made quiche (sundried tomato-broc-shroom) for picnic tomorrow. Also potato/zucchini/onion/shroom skewers for second picnic tomorrow.

oooh, two puppy walks & a big long trot over to Metrotown on the train to stock up for the trip with my little pull-cart that I can pull like a sled-dog (well, it rolls not slides but it has a chest strap from MEC to transfer the load from my feeble wrists to the strong body core) - 2.5km
chomped down a tylenol sandwich, rested a bit, * took Gyp for a feeble shuffle around the neighborhood -0.9km
then after dinner at the Keg (mojito, salad, tempura asparagus & snowpeas, & creme brulee) w/ Alfie D & I took the dog out for her evening walk together, met Teak, her other HUGE boyfriend. - 1.1km

not sleeping so great these days, so wrote out proper lists for trip to Island, Whistler, & Vernon next week, now I feel more organized & hopefully will stop waking up to make notes on forgotten stuff. Popped my R knee this AM, gah, feels funky again. Gah.

checked on blackberries behind Cortina, then went for a drink at the Taylor Park water fountain. Berries still have a week or so to go. R knee actually seems good.

cuz it is hotter today we went in the woods down the creek in the shade, & spent a bit less time outside but moved around more. Most of the way down G-dog was fascinated by a dead cherry tree, & then these two baby TINY silky black squirrels were just SCREAMING and flailing at the base of it, & the mama was chuk-chukking away up by the nest-hole. They were so pathetic and completely distraught, just lying on the ground screeching. We hurried off, but I snuck back by myself afterwards & I THINK the mama was able to calm them down and lure them back up the tree cuz they weren't at the bottom anymore (there were some broken mushrooms where they had been lying) & no bits or fur or anything... I hope they are OK.
Now I gotta scurry about & get smoked salmon pasta w/ peas & zucchini along w/ some yummy white-trash chard greens cooked up. Plus some lahdidah goat cheese N crackers.

C • STOP it. those food descripti... 4

went out for evening walk, this time to retrieve dog from D during his evening run - she can't run the full length yet cuz her joints are still a bit squishy being under a year old, so I grabbed her leash from him at the Rocks, about a quarter of the way thru, did our "bidnis" (cuz ya can't do that when yer a happy lil maniac runnin' dog), & home.