California... Day 5... Part 1 of 2...

On our last day of shows Chance was looking as regal as ever.


After the show... Cayenne asked her older brother if they should play "bitey-face".


And Chance decided they shall. This went on for a good ten minutes.


In case I confused anyone, we call Chance "the wag" and "Waggy" because his tail goes "flip-flip-flip-flip-flip" when he is happy.

Wag and his cousin Phoebe used the fountain for a family photo op.


And Wag's younger sister, Cayenne, figured it was a nice shot... so why not :)


Although the sky was gray by the show grounds, it was beautiful just forty minutes away at Huntington Beach.


This beach is famous for its surf and the competitions that are held here. I had no idea how close to the shore the drilling rigs were.


The pier is a main attraction but the Wag was not welcomed by local police. When will they realize that if my dogs are not welcome then my money must not be welcome either?


Click the below image for a panorama of the main strip. The red curb on the right and left ar connected and that road stretches along the shore.


Ok, what would a vacation be without food? We had fantastic burritos and margaritas. I finally got to eat at both Jack-in-the-Box and In-Out burger. JITB was delicious and IO was on par with Long Island's very own All American.

But we took a chance (no pun intended) and tried Papa Joe's Pizza. You have to remember that I'm from NY and I love my NY pizza... but, it was actually quite good! And not only did I like it...


But my wife liked it...


And so did the Wag!


Remember... where I go, my dog goes... and if you say no, I'll spend my ducketts elsewhere. The trip rounds out tomorrow. See you then...

California... Day 4... Part 1 of 3...

I told you I have a lot of shots...
And I told you she was showing dogs... every day... dogs...

"Just a leeeetle bit closer and your soul will be miiiiiine!"


I just couldn't get over this wonderful eye.


Ok, so we were on the road by noon and heading toward Joshua Tree National Park. Maybe someone can shed some light as to why there is a Mammoth on the side of a mountain. I'm assuming that fossils are found in them thar' hills...


Everyday, up until now, consisted of clouds.


I wish they would set these up in the Long Island Sound already. I found them quite relaxing.


The park is beautiful and caters to rock climbers.


There are trails to wander on and many sights to see. Unfortunately my wife feared having to drag ourselves out if the desert with rattlesnake bites... so we didn't wander to far. (The day after this trek a woman at the dog show with a dalmatian was telling me that her dog was bit by a rattler... while we were out on our hike. He was given antivenin and was ok. It was actually the second time the dog had been bit in two years!)


Waggy leaves one behind for Hollywood. Take that!


Even in this arid land the ground is teaming with life. I wish we could have stayed till dark to see some REAL wildlife.


I was told that these Joshua trees only grow in this area of the world at around 2,000-6,000 feet above sea level. They thrive in the area that is the park.


Enjoy the desktop image...


Our vacation starts to look up.


Come again tomorrow :)

Hollywood is a dirthole... Day 3...

Day three started with another dog show. This was an all breed show and was held at a big complex.


Cayenne was getting more comfortable near the breed rings and was eager to please her masters and breeders.


Chance (The Wag) gave a little "sucky face" to the camera.


Then he was all about business...


He showed well but no advancement today.


Sadie's owners are friends of ours. Isn't she precious?


Now for the title of this post.


Why didn't anyone warn me? What a dump Hollywood is.


The sign says it all :)


"That female impostor ain't got nuthin' on me!"


So why did I hate Hollywood so much? It's a TRAP! When a street sign says one hour metered parking from 9am to 4pm... and you put an hours worth of change in a meter at 3:30pm... you expect to be safe. But instead, we returned to our vehicle at 4:15 and it was on a tow-truck!!!

We had all our belongings in the vehicle because we were going to a new hotel and pleaded with the officer to not tow it. We were told that it was a no parking zone after 4pm (F*#@) Sooooo, we had to pay $152 to the tow people to release the vehicle and we have an additional $140 fine that we have to send to CA.

AND I STILL HAVEN'T SEEN INDY YET! I should have gone to the movies and said F*#@ Hollywood. What a freakin' dump :(


If we were a minute later we would have been screwed. If it wasn't for the fun lunch I had with Stefan my vacation would have officially sucked! Thanks again for the personal meet and greet and book signing :)

And, apologies to Old Old Lady in the Hills. She lives in a beautiful house overlooking what I called a dump. If I had planned ahead I might have been able to meet her... and had a better time in Hollywood.

Cali... Day 2...

So, the main reason my wife went to California was for... what else... dog shows. We had our boy Chance entered, as well as Cayenne (from Cali) and a dog that my wife co-owns (Toddy).

Toddy won big that day :)


And Ella's sister Cayenne did rather well too :)


Mid-day, I took a nap and slept through a hail storm... NO JOKE! High winds picked up the canopies at the show ground and hail pelted the people and dogs. I woke up to the wife bursting into the hotel room after running through the rain and hail.

Afterwards, I found some escargot...


This should have been a "WIIF?"


They were everywhere...


I looked up and my eye caught this interesting scene...


...as well as this one.


This day was my wifes' and I knew the Border Collie specialty would take up quite a bit of the day. So off on another trek through the mountains.


This time we came across some scary-tight roads that brought me to the above dam. We didn't want to traverse these roads in the dark so we turned around and this time put the right info into the GPS.


Oh, and the reason we came to CA...

Chance received an Award of Merit at the Border Collie Specialty. A high honor indeed :)

Kal-i-for-nigh-Aye.... Day 1...

So the wife and I went to California last week. We haven't been on a real vacation in over nine years and I think I can say we still haven't been.

We saw some nice sights, met some nice people, and got some ribbons for our dogs... but we had our crap days too.

Over the next few days I will be posting pictures and detailing our journey. I hope you will come along for the ride through the good and the bad.

We arrived at JFK and tried the curbside check-in. We had a woman in front of us and two attendants. One attendant helped the woman in front of us and the other stood there until another woman walked up behind us. He then began to help HER!

Yes, ignored us and then acted like nothing was wrong. We went inside and did SELF check in and then rushed to long-term-parking and the train back to the terminal. After passing through security and RUNNING to our gate, an attendant was walking out of the corridor attached to the plane and shut the door.

Yes, we missed the flight by about 30 seconds. After telling about our ordeal we were given seats on the next flight... three hours later. Great start.


The flight was nice, but none of the headphone jacks worked... YAY! We ended up playing an on-screen trivia game against other passengers and got first place of all time on the top ten scores.


I adjusted these pictures a little to get rid of some of the haze but I love the effect it created. And look at that curve on the horizon!


We passed over the Grand Canyon and had some great views through the clouds.




Finally on the ground we met up with one of our pups. Look how big Cayenne has gotten! She turned out to be a fabulous dog and her human mommies love her very much.


I hated losing a day to the flight so I decided to take a ride into the mountains with our rented GPS.


Twenty minutes into our ride we came across what I believe is a coyote.


I asked my wife to punch in the hotel info into the GPS for our return trip and she began to nap as I drove. After a few long stretches I questioned if the GPS was taking us a round-about way. The problem was that we punched in the hotel in LA... not Claremont (where our hotel actually was)... So we took a little ride out of the way, but we got to see LA at night. On to day two...