Potpourri

Schedule- coming up:

This weekend, Silkenfest; I hear tell they've got 48 pre-entries for their race meet on Sunday. Memorial Day Weekend will find us in Shawnee, OK for Indian Nations Basenji Club's AKC trials, followed by the ASFA II in Minnesota, and then the Saluki Club of America specialty in Lexington, KY. We've got some heavy travel in our future...

I also need to do a quick writeup on one of the best restaurants we've ever eaten at - in Wheeling, West Virginia!!! - and an update on Rally's foot surgery. The two are sort of related... . That will come after I figure out how to digitize her post-op X-ray. It's quite impressive. Maybe tomorrow.

The Dragon

We came..

We drove..

We bought the T-Shirt.

The Deerhound Specialty being over, we finally had to time to explore America's Number 1 motorcycle and sportscar destination.. The Tail of the Dragon. That's the portion of US129 that runs from Deal's Gap, NC north into Tennessee for 11 miles. In those 11 miles, the road has 318 curves! And all as smooth as a baby's butt, as you can see above. And all up and down, no flat places.

We took a few pictures, which you can see at the the Shot On Site website , but for the best images from the Dragon go to Killboy.com. That's "Killboy" (aka Darryl Cannon) on the right in the image below.. we had a chance to stop and chat on Sunday. Note that he's not the one with the camera. I can only hope that our business is so successful someday that we can hire associates to do the shooting for us. ;)

All kidding aside, Darryl was on his way to shoot at another curve, so we were lucky to find him here. There is always someone from Killboy.com at the Dragon... every day. If you go to his site, you'll probably even see us buzzing by!

This week, there are over 500 Mini Coopers there. Like I said, a serious driving destination. It was by far the most fun I've ever had driving the Escape, and Margaret only told me to slow down once in 22 miles!

Something Earth Shattering...

Scottish Deerhound Club of America, National Specialty Show.. Veteran Dogs, 9 yrs and over. This is the lineup. (5 were originally entered, so I thought, "OK, you're going to win something.")

At 10 years, 8 1/2 months old, Randir was the oldest dog in the lineup by 2 months. He still moves great. We had a lot of supporters ringside... when I trotted him down and back there was a lot of cheering.

The judge said, "You've got a lot of friends." I said, "I guess so." She then moved him up to second! My boy's having a hell of a specialty! Now I have to give money to another photographer!

These images by Margaret.

Scary Image of the Day

Fontana Dam. Part of the TVA system, and the highest dam east of the Mississippi. This is the view from our campsite!

First Brag...

Not a lot of time, but in Monday's LGRA race meet at the SDCA specialty, my old boy managed to win the Turtle! (For the uninitiated, that's the dog with the lowest score who finishes - in a racing manner- all three of their races. It's a very coveted award). He also won the award for being the oldest (10 years, 8 months) to do the same. Cool!

Hiatus.

Posting has been light lately. No particular reason, other than we've been cursed over the last couple of weeks with poor internet signals, which is the case today. We're at the Escapees Racoon Valley RV park north of Knoxville. We'll continue on our way to the deerhound specialty on Sunday. That will be a week-long event, and if anything earth shattering happens we'll be able to post on it, from our location on the southern edge of the Great Smoky Mountains. (Earth shattering to be defined by how well Randir does in the show ring in veterans!)

Might as well show the schedule for the next couple of weeks. Following the specialty, (and a trip to Wheeling to have Rally's hock repaired), we will be at...

May 5-6 OKIGO AKC trial Fairborn, OH
May 12-13 MGA ASFA trial Gibralter, MI
May 20 Silken Windhound Purina Farms
May 26-28 INBC AKC trials Shawnee, OK
June 2-3 ASFA II Farmington, MN
June 5-8 SCOA specialty Lexington, KY
June 16-17 Open weekend
June 23-24 LCLC ASFA trial Youngstown, NY
June 30 July 1 MGA ASFA trial Metamora, MI
July 7-8 BGCC ASFA trial Columbia, KY
July 21-22 Open weekend
July 27-29 Ridgeback Rodeo Conneautville, PA

Updates to follow...

Kurt Vonnegut Jr. 1922-2007

The passing of an American literary icon. And iconoclast. Time to dig out the old books from storage. And get a Vonnegut film festival together from Netflix; don't think I've ever seen Mother Night.

Of all places, the best memorial I've read today, is by that dancing, globetrotting, madcap blogger, Matt Harding, (from Where the Hell is Matt? fame). Powerful stuff. And true. (but I'm still not removing the semicolon in the first paragraph!)

If you're Sirius radio subscribers, (or want to try it out online free for three days), you can catch a rebroadcast on Sunday evening, of today's "Vin Scelsa's Idiot's Delight" show, which was, in turn, a replaying of his 1996 interview with Vonnegut Jr. on his WNEW broadcast radio show. Well worth looking up.. I think it's on at either 7 or 8 PM Eastern time, Sunday April 15.