I dream of Genie

Well it looked like a good title. I have a visitor here for a bit, Afanasii Belozor Surreptitious JC who is from the litter bred 3 years ago by Rebecca and Tim Neal, myself and our friend Suzanne Liggett. Genie always had a lot of lure interest got her JC, got ASFA certed but Suzanne isn't exactly thrilled with lure coursing so she never made it out. I took her this 4 day weekend I was judging to Powell TN, she got her QC on Friday, ran on Saturday got a point, ran Sunday and Monday and got 2 more SC legs. Hope to get her to some ASFA trials before she eventually goes back to Arkansas .pretty girl was pointed in the ring as a puppy showing in BBE. She is a Neechee granddaughter on her dam's side.

10th highpoint! Mt.Rogers Virginia 5700+feet

Saturday June 11th was scheduled to be overcast near Mt. Rogers, with thunderstorms expected at some point, but Archie being the intrepid and optimistic adventurer headed North from Pigeon Forge TN at 5 AM that morning. We arrived at the AT parking lot near Elk Garden, parked the truck and geared up. I found that carrying a heavy pack is ruinous for me so I only carried a 2 liter camelbak and couple of snacks for the 9 mile round trip hike. It was probably around 70 and overcast or just below 70, made me glad I had a long sleeve shirt over my tank top. In the photos above you can see the overcast sky and if you look carefully at the one with the fence post in it you will see the road below and a parking lot where the truck is as we headed up the AT.

The meadows in this area of the National Forest are beautiful, we did not see any of the infamous wild ponies that the Forest Service keeps here to help keep the grassy areas open but we sure saw signs of them!

The AT here is much more gradual and sloping uphill than the Smoky Mt sections of the AT we have been used to hiking. THANK GOD! because when the skies finally opened up we had enough to deal with all the buckets of water pouring down without a steep rocky, scary trail

It was POURING rain and thundering when we summited but I managed to protect my camera and get one picture of Archie on the summit. Me, myself and I did not care for any photos on the summit, I just wanted to get OFF OF THAT MOUNTAIN. Roundtrip of 9 miles completed between 8:30 AM and just before 2 PM. Whew!

Beautiful country I will say that.

My vote for CRAZY OF THE WEEK!

Republican representative Young of Alaska says BP oil spill is NOT an environmental disaster. Well, only if you are one of the millions in the Gulf of Mexico depending on fish, shrimp, oysters or tourism for your livelihood it is a disaster. Only if you are any sort of ocean living or ocean going mammal, bird, reptile, fish, or mollusk is it a disaster. I guess the bastard has never seen anything like this
http://www.bradenton.com/2010/05/23/2306982/hundreds-of-birds-coated-with.html

or he can't read.

I'd love to see him have to be coated with that crude oil and lie on a beach in South Louisiana right about now. This is only ONE oil rig disaster. I believe there are around 4000 in the gulf. Pray there are no more.