First Week Down 'Unda

Too many things. Just look at the pictures.

Australian Bacon is the best bacon

This city is beautiful. You'd never know that everything here is poisonous.

There is lots of wildlife that likes cameras:

No gumtrees around, so he'll settle for a balcony.

Emus do not like cameras as much.

'Roos like cameras.

But not selfies.

My mother likes pictures. And Selfies.

There is nature.

And bikes in nature.

end.

Ready, set, go!

Welp, it's time to go. Yesterday I sold my beloved Tacoma, The Falcon (He can make .5 past light speed) and packed all of my belongings into duffels for the flight Down Unda'...And by all of my belongings, I mean mostly running and biking stuff...

The green stuff is regular person clothes.

...and by a "into duffels" I mean I'm taking a bike bag and a 75lb bag and making my mom take a 50lb bag. Packing is hard.

All-in, I'm bringing about 207 lbs of STUFF to Australia, not counting 40lbs of dog and 175lbs of human. The last few days have really shown me what I count as important in my life (dogs and bikes, apparently) as I was forced to downsize from fitting all of my belongings into a pickup truck to a few bags. It's also a good reminder of how much cycling encourages consumerism and hoarding. I mean, why DON'T I need 800 safety pins? I might need them for something...like safety pinning...

Disclaimer: The above sentence referencing what Jeff sees as important refers to only things that can be put into a duffel bag or shipped in an animal crate. In order for Jeff not to get in trouble, it is necessary that he points out that this does not include the smaller, female human in his life that he sees as incredibly awesome and great.

Eventually, I have everything packed and ready to go. Except now it's 2PM and I have six hours until I leave for the airport.

TrailDoge

Recently I've been trying to prepare Penny to life "Down Under". According to C, this would mean throwing a variety of venomous creatures at her whilst she attempts to outrun a great white shark. I've decided that an easier way to do this is to take advantage of our current heat wave and expend some of Penny's seemingly limitless energy on noon-time trail runs in Tilden.

"Can we go now?"

Our preparations always seem to have a certain pattern: Jeff fills the water bottles, Penny gets excited. Jeff puts on running clothes, Penny gets excited. Jeff puts on Penny's harness, Penny loses her shit. Jeff puts on shoes, Penny tries to eat Jeff's shoes. Jeff gets distracted, Penny sighs and waits by the door for 15 minutes. Then we leave.

In the ten or so times that we've driven to the park recently, Penny has learned to recognize when it's time to get excited, and that time is always. The moment we pull out of the driveway she stands bolt-upright, then goes flying across the seat as we make our first turn. By the time we get to our traditional parking spot she has hit her nose against the window approximately 8,000 times and has spent the majority of the car ride accidentally stepping on my crotch.

"No seriously, can we go yet?"

Finally, we're off! Today, Penny forgets that we'll be running for the next hour or so and takes off after a squirrel at mach 1 dog speed.

See ya.

She has always been a bit more independent than other dogs and I'm still not entirely convinced that she won't just keep running into the woods and start a new life there. Luckily, our friend the squirrel just barely makes it up a tree and Penny decides to come back.

I'm back!

About a mile further we're settling into our rhythm when we come across Penny's favorite sign. This sign says that there is toxic algae in park water. Dogs should not drink or play in water:

To Penny, this reads:

C says I'm good at Photoshop.

So instead of taking the approach my parents so lovingly remind me they used to take with me (some may call it "Darwinian), I make it difficult for my dog to drink the water that would surely remove her from the gene pool and bring out the porta-leash.

While tying her up, I notice some cool looking fungi growing from a nearby stump, but since I'm not dumb (and I understand irony) I don't eat them.

Probably $50/lb at Whole Foods.

After a short climb, we're far away from the blue-green death water so Penny comes off the leash and promptly tries to end the life of yet another innocent squirrel.

Pretty sure that's what they mean to say.

...which makes her thirsty.

See that Penny? All the light touches is your kingdom.
"What about over there by the fog?" 
That's called "The City". We can't afford it.

We jam across the ridge, deciding not to take the watershed trail, well, because it's illegal, and hit my favorite part of the route, which is a single-tracky downhill back to the main part of the park.

#ActionShot

After that, a quick little climb takes us back to the car, and a very tired doge.

Link to Today's Run