Oregon Trip Day 1

Hello from the Oregon Trip:

April 23, 2009 - Day 1 Telluride to Moab

Written by Mary Dawn,
Mary Dawn, Valentino, Smokie Bear and Michael are heading out to Portland, Oregon for the Bernese Mountain Dog Specialty. It is actually a work trip with some sightseeing along the way.

We headed out of Telluride, with a very FULL vehicle. Valentino can't grow too much more or he won't fit. :)

After about a 2.5 hour drive down from the San Juan Mountains to the arid desert town of Moab, we unloaded at our "Fido Friendly" ** hotel, the River Canyon Lodge. After the dogs opened their complementary "treat" bag given to them by the hotel (yum!), we got changed quickly for an early evening hike. How nice not to have to put on jackets and sweaters, as the temperature in Moab was a pleasant 78 degrees : )

** (Note that Mary Dawn is writing an article about the places we stay for Fido Friendly Magazine, so all of the nice hotels along the way are complementing our stay! Sweet!)

The hike we chose was the Negro Bill Canyon Hike, which was quite the adventure and perfect for the dogs, as it followed a clear creek up the canyon the whole way. Both Smokie Bear and Valentino greatly enjoyed the hike, as they got to see their first cactus and ford the creek in many places! Valentino did great. At first he was a little nervous about crossing the creek, but in the end he was quite the pro!

We got a late start and did not make it all the way to the bridge at the end, but we had lots of fun. Indeed, we turned back just in time, as it was quite dark by the time we got back and I had to use my light off my phone to help guide Mary Dawn. The dogs had great night vision and had no problems finding the trail.

All-in-all, the exciting canyon hike and first night in Moab were a great kick-off to our western adventure trip - and such a warmer-upper after being so many months in the cold and snow.

The following photos are a collections of mine and Mary Dawns. She is doing a lot of the processing of descriptions and tagging as we drive on the road.

Click on the arrow below to see a slide show of our first day's photos.




Another exciting thing is that I am NOW Geogagging my photos. You can see on a map where the photos are taken. Click the link -> Flickr MAP of photos from day 1 VERY COOL. I will write more about how I did this later.


Note, I will TRY to keep a daily, running blog of the trip, so check back regularily!



Also, please make comments below or if you want to follow our tweets on the right, (Yes! We will be "twittering" along the way!) or at http://twitter.com/mmowery or http://twitter.com/marydawn or http://twitter.com/valentinoschatz or http://twitter.com/smokiebearpup

Ok better go, I now need to download day 2 photos and geotag them so Mary Dawn can add descriptions to them on the drive.