Ugh, my legs!!

No pain, no gain right!?? The team is in training for the bike relay and today we did the longest ride to date. 64 freakin' km's for me. I met Jon, Laura and Heather at the cut-off (which was 17km into my ride) and we rode up the AK hwy again. Heather and I would have been happy going only about 10km, but Jon and Laura wanted the first 50km notch on their... spandex.

Since they rode 10km to the cut-off, they wanted to go 15km up the hwy. Thus, the long stretches of hwy began.

It's actually nice and windy up this way. If anything you don't see the damned hills till you're almost at them.

Laura leads for this bit.


The wildlife was... interesting on this ride. First off, we saw a HUGE moose on the other side of the road. I whipped out my camera, just as a monster truck went FLYING by us and scared the moose off into the bushes. What a bummer. This thing was a giant and I was annoyed to not get a photo of it.

Not only did we see the moose, I saw a unique animal on my way home alone. I saw something rustling in the bushes off to the side of the highway and knowing what kind of animals are around this one farm, I knew it was a -- PIG!! This pig probably weighed as much as that moose. And as a society, we're not really warned on how to pass pigs on the hwy while riding a bike. I just knew this thing weighed like, 300lbs and looked pretty cranky. I was exhausted and not up for any pig-fighting tonight. So I stopped about 50ft from it, and went to pull my camera out again, when the thing stopped eating, looked my way and stared. I thought, "oh crap, just my luck - I'm gonna get charged by a pig today..." Then he snorted, as he swung his head my way again. I wasn't sure whether I should turn around and ride for my life or stand my ground. I was simply too tired to turn around, no way was I going backwards!

So after staring me down for a few seconds, he ran across the hwy at a pretty good speed and he disappeared into the bushes. Ha! Suck it pig!!! I win!

Anyways...

Jon on his mountain bike. This is like, his fourth ride or something. He's insane.

Heather pulls up to the group


Finally, we make it halfway!! Time for a break in the sand dunes

Laura playing in the sand. Jon realizes it's not easy to ride in sand.

The BlisterButts!

Heather, moi and Laura

The BlisterButts head off into the sunset

and hope they can walk tomorrow...

It's... BEACH TIME!!!

This long weekend was a blur of activities. Highlights include flagging the new driveway, watching the dogs run on the beach and the impromptu wrestling match at my bonfire between two grown men that resulted in one pair of torn pants. Sorry, no pictures of that last one.

But you are in luck for the other two whether you like it or not!

First off - my future driveway. It's *almost* official.


As you can see, I flagged the crap out of it for the nice Lands guy who is going to go out and give me the ok.

All in all, it's about 250m (800+ft) of driveway. That is REALLLLLY far away from other people. And the highway. But mostly, other people.

Here we are in the meadow on a BEAUTIFUL day that was about +20C.

So, can you see that Kuna is gnawing on something?


Why yes! It's a skull of course!

So cool that I had to steal it. He was NOT impressed.

It's definitely a young canine - those chompers are brand new. And we can always use skull for our archaeology digs. However, when I brought this one into work today, a few of my co-workers fled the scene and a few visiting tourists were curiously looking at the gross, yet intriguing find in my hand. Or maybe it was the smell... this thing is pretty fresh and still kinda meaty. Apparently I "smelled" after I was handling it many people were quick to point out. I guess the breaking point was my noticing the spinal cord/fluid still kind of there.

Mental note: use gloves when handling greasy, meaty carcasses at work. Ah, if only I had a nickel for everytime I had to remind myself of that.


He really really loved that find. I don't know why but this picture just makes me laugh - must be all the smiley teeth!


Getting to the end of the driveway. Building site off thattaway!!!!!

Ah, the meadow...

Love it - I'm seriously thinking of pitching a wall tent here in the next month and just moving there. The more I think about it, the more I think I'm crazy NOT to do it.

Then - later that day I took out a few wired hounds to the river:

My Tasmanian Devil, Ivy literally screeched her head off before we even left! Then when we got to the river, she ran 100 miles/hr nonstop for the first half hour. She was leaping over other dogs, trees, up cliffs, and in this picture, only the water slowed her down. I love her facial expression, almost like she wasn't quite expecting to slow down *that* much!


Holy Leaping Ivy! (and not-so-leapy-Loki)

Jack and Harris beating the crap out of each other AND running at the same time. Multi-taskers!


Sandy, wet Ivy. She is soooo freakin' cute!

"Hi! Bye! Gotta go run!!!!"


Loki sneakily looks at me as he trots by.


Run my precious monkies, run!!!!

Ah, happy, happy, somewhat tired dogs (and really tired human)... sweet relief!

Training our BlisterButts off...

The bike relay is FOUR short weeks away!! And the "BlisterButts" are in full-on training mode. Here is Laura and Heather as we head out to the Hot Springs last weekend. Laura is suddenly addicted to cycling. She's borrowed "the-other-Heather's" bike and gear and is now ready to roll.

I rode from my place and had a good almost 40km ride that day. Windy as hell, but hey, it always is!

"Ok, Laura... POSE!"

"Wait, let me get my cool sunglasses on..." as she sticks out the tongue for good measure.

Voila! Instant cyclist. Looks pretty good for someone who hadn't even been on the bike yet at this point.


Yesterday Jon and Laura and I headed up the AK hwy and did 40km together. It was a blast and had nice rolling hills, nothing to big or steep... just right. There were a couple gravelly bits of road, but such is summer in the Yukon. I am still loving the road bike and we all felt yesterday we could have kept going after we finished. Ok, that was until we got OFF the bikes and realized walking was a bit difficult. But I feel pretty good today though and the weather here is supposed to be really nice next week (high of 22C!!!!), so I forsee being on the bike on a daily basis for the next little while.

Next longish ride: 60+km ride out past Fox Lake in the next week!

You know you're a Yukon Backwoods Hillbilly when...

... you're outhouse doubles as a storage shed for your new road bike!


The best part is, is that you don't even have to move it to use the "facilities"

It's really the only way to keep it from being used as a canine pee post - they feel the need to urinate on the things I like the most.

When I let it out of the outhouse, this is one of the places we go:

Up the highway. I LOVE this bike, I never realized how much FUN cycling can actually be when you're not slogging uphills on a heavy mtn. bike.


The rather teeny shoulders of the road


Coming around the bend...


The farming of sod


Not sure why I took this...

Or this...


Up towards Lake Laberge



The sky - just for my mom! She loves the Yukon sky, 'cause it's "just different" than the sky in Calgary. Hee hee... moms...

In summary: I like my bike

This just made me laugh

Somebody just loooooves his little ball, doesn't he?!?!

I've noticed a trend - my dogs don't really ever seem to "mature" or, act their ages as they get older. Kuna is pushing 9, but still has a puppy-brain.

"My ball, my ball.... I have the ball... nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah......."

Gah!!! Don't choke!

A whole lotta shedding going on

'Tis the season for furballs! It's that time of year again, when the fur starts flying.



Harris and Jack are always the first to go - but this is the first time Harris looks like a long haired dog. The underfur that is coming out is really long and wispy!

Hmm... must find brush...

Meanwhile, Ripper hasn't started shedding yet, but made a sneaky find in the cabin the other night. What else? A tennis ball! Just when I think I've got them all hidden, he manages to find one. He was very sneaky and quiet with this one, wasn't trying to ingest it, so I let him have some fun thinking that it was his for a few minutes. :)

Look at that look of satisfaction on his face. It's kind of mixed with worry since I usually snag them from him pretty fast. He knows the "fun" will end soon...

Just waiting for all the trails to dry up to continue on our merry bikejoring ways! :)

PSA: CSL Horror Show

Ok, so this is wayyyy off topic from average post on this blog...

Anyone out there paying off Canada Student Loans? Anyone having a NIGHTMARE of a time with it? Do you feel like you're at the end of your rope and ready to jump off a bridge?? Send me your stories! I'm looking to other people paying off Canada Student Loans who are trying to work with the "system" yet are being having to deal with the nightmare that comes with the unbelievably screwed up CSL program.

Whatever your issue: be it with the banks, collection agencies, HRDC, privacy issues, defaulting, lost information, harassment, abuse, etc, etc (the list goes on AND on) - send your story/info to me at chaoskennel13 AT yahoo.com. I'm compiling as much information as I can about this as I know there are THOUSANDS of people dealing with this nightmare. Everything is confidential - and I really mean it, unlike some of those people in those agencies we are forced to deal with.

End of rant. Off my soapbox. For now.