Visiting National Parks With Dogs

A few days ago me, Kerrigan, Ben and his Mom took a trip to Death Valley National Park.  Visiting National Parks with the dogs is not something I love to do but it is certainly something that can be done.  I am not talking about all of the areas that are managed by the National Parks Service, just the Parks.  National Recreation Areas, National Monuments and other areas all have different policies and some are more dog friendly than the parks.  For a lot of good reasons National Parks tend to have a very restrictive dog policy.  For the most part pets are limited to paved areas and campsites.  They are not allowed down trails or in buildings and must always be on a 6 foot or shorter fixed leash.  Honestly I think this is a great policy.  The National Parks are great for observing wildlife and a natural habitat- dogs are not a part of that.  Also many parks have a lot of wildlife that can be dangerous to dogs.  While eating lunch at Death Valley there we had a coyote walk about 50 feet away from our picnic area.  Kerri was not upset but if she was off leash it could have been a very different story!

Due to all the rules we tend to stick to BLM land, National Forests or other outdoor areas but occasionally we are out and about and stop by a park with the dogs.  They really are the most beautiful places in the United States and sometimes we can't pass by the opportunity to check them out with the dogs.  Last week was one of those days and I think me and Kerrigan made the best of the trip.  We did have to sit on a bench while everyone else enjoyed the Visitor Center, then sit on a bench while everyone else went on a hike but we got to see a beautiful sunset while waiting there so it was totally worth it.  Kerrigan also got to do some other fun things like...

• Give Ben kisses at the lowest point in the western hemisphere!  Do you see that little white sign way up on the mountain?  That is SEA LEVEL!  We were standing at about 280 feet below sea level.

• Take Artists Drive.  A beautiful scenic drive full of volcanic rocks that make the mountainside look like it was painted.

• Visit the Devils Golf Course.  According to the Park Service it is an immense area of rock salt eroded by wind and rain into jagged spires. So incredibly serrated that “only the devil could play golf on such rough links.” 

• And finally do a lot of sitting around near No Dogs Beyond This Point signs waiting for the family to come back.  Luckily this often involved treats so that's ok.

Dog Friendly Sedona!

A few weeks ago Kerrigan, my Mom and I went on a trip to Sedona, AZ.  It was a lot of fun, and very dog friendly!  We stayed at a hotel called the Sedona Real Inn, and we give it 4 out of 5 paws up.  The dog friendly rooms were on the ground floor, all tiled and they had an off leash park area with a grill, fire pit and plenty of grass so you could easily get some down time with your dogs.  They also gave you a collapsible bowl, leash and a few biscuits when you checked in.  I would count this hotel as one of the actually dog friendly ones out there, as opposed to the places that say they are dog friendly but you feel like the whole time they are just angry you brought a dog to the place.  The staff was friendly too and the breakfast was delicious.  The only reason I would not give this place a five paw stamp of approval is because they have no view whatsoever.  Their website shows nothing but beautiful views of the red rocks, but it was just about the ONLY PLACE in the entire city of Sedona without a great view.  They even have a post card in the room showing the hotel with a great view behind it- but neither me nor my Mom could figure out how they took that picture.  Must have used a helicopter- because not a single room in that place had a gorgeous panoramic view from what we could tell.  

We spent one day exploring the national forest and the little shops around town, then the other day we went on a little hike.  The National Forest there is really nice, and very diverse.  In the area around Sedona it is actually a forest, thick with trees and plenty of creeks.  In the valley it was more of a desert terrain with lots of red rocks and rock formations.  Expect to see plenty of cacti all mixed up with forests as evidenced by this picture of Kerri at the start of one of our hikes.

 The town was very nice and a lot of the stores were dog friendly.  We always had one of us wait outside with Kerri and went into the stores one at a time, but often the people in the shop would see that's what we were doing and invite us all right in.  Kerri also attracted a lot of attention from chihuahua lovers- who seemed to be everywhere around Sedona.  Several were amazed that I got such a small chi as a puppy from a shelter and I told those people if they are looking for a chi they should check out Las Vegas's kill shelter The Animal Foundation because they are literally packed full of them!  It is just crazy to me that there are some places in this country where chis are the hottest dogs in shelters, all being adopted within hours of showing up and here in Las Vegas they are being euthanized by the hundreds.  I wish that people would know what was going on and we could just get these dogs into the hands of the people who want them.  To me it does not seem like a numbers problem, it is a marketing and transport problem.  Maybe just a marketing one because most of these people in Sedona seemed to think it would even be worth the drive to Vegas to get a chihuahua.  Anyway, I digress...

We ate at several restaurants with dog friendly outdoor patios.  I had two favorites, one called Ken's Creekside actually had a dog menu with both cooked and raw food options.  I ordered Kerrigan raw ground beef and an egg (I think they called it steak tartar).  It came in a great dane sized bowl that Kerri literally had to climb into to eat, but other than that I thought it was great.  I brought freeze dried food with me, and I probably could have gotten beef from the supermarket for cheaper, but it was just so convenient.  The people food was great too.  My Mom is a vegetarian and she ordered the vegan tomato soup and a hummus plate (they had a whole vegetarian menu available) and I had some pork ribs dressed up as buffalo wings.  It was all fresh and delicious.  

My favorite restaurant had to have been the first place we ate- Rene at Tlaquepaque.  It was just delicious.  Not often do you find great gourmet restaurants with local wines and fresh foods that also have a dog friendly patio, but this was for sure that.  There was one other dog there (raw fed I believe- the movement is growing) and her people told us the pecan pie was to die for.  I believe them but unfortunately we were too stuffed from pasta and duck to even think about desert.

We ate a few places without Kerrigan too, but honestly Kens and Rene were the best places we went to with or without a dog!  Kerri was a real trooper, walking around all day, even getting up for the sunrise but at night she was just as pooped as the rest of us.  Here is what it looked like both nights as soon as her head hit the pillow.

One warning I have about Sedona though- it is not Las Vegas!  It was downright chilly there at night compared to Vegas.  I thoguht we were going to the same climate in the next desert over but I ended up sorely unprepared.  Kerri only had one sweater with her and she would have been much better off if we brought a few t-shirts and a few more sweaters for the humans.  All was well in the end though, there was a fireplace in the room.

I'll leave you with a few more pictures of Kerrigan enjoying the sunrise and then our hike.

(P.S. If you don't already follow us on facebook please do.  Facebook.com/doginthedesert )

A Guide to The Extraterrestrial Highway

+1 To anyone who knows what landmark Kerri is sitting on there.  If you don't know you should watch one of my favorite movies of all time, Paul, or click here for a wikipedia article on the subject.

(If anyone looking to do this drive comes by the page through good ole search engines I did try to make this post more like a visitors guide, you will find some good info and lots of links to get your research started even if you are going without a dog)

This weekend Ben took a day off and we planned to go camping at Mt. Charleston with our chihuahuas favorite people and an old friend who moved to town just last week!  We ended up not camping, but that will be covered in tomorrows blog post titled "Why We Make Smart Decisions About Turning Back and Don't Die in the Wilderness."  Instead of camping we took a LONG day trip along the Extraterrestrial Highway!  This drive is something we have been wanting to do for a while (being the sci fi geeks we are) and this was the perfect opportunity.  From Las Vegas it takes about 8 hours, you make a complete circle around Area 51, the Atomic Test Site and Nellis Airforce Base.  The main attraction is The Extraterrestrial Highway (Nevada SR375) at the top of the loop, but there are a lot of other cool things to see on the way.  This is not to say that the drive is filled with stuff.  There is a 150 mile stretch of highway with no restrooms or gas and the vast majority of it looks like this-

 Or if you are really lucky this-

The drive started with us taking 15 North out of the city.  We brought Kerri on this trip because she loves car rides and seeing new places.  Copley is OK with traveling but really would rather just get to a destination, a car ride like this would be do-able but not at all fun so he stayed home with Nova.    Kerri seemed to like the trip- she was excited to sniff around at all of our stops and just slept in her crate during the ride.

Pretty soon after leaving the valley you take 93 towards Alamo, NV.  This is where we hit our first historical marker!

Kerri investigates the state seal.

This marks the southern border of the state of Nevada from 1861 to 1867.  Worth a stop?  Eh.

Then of course Ben had to touch a few plants before we got back in the car.

Next up is the Pahranagat valley, home to Pahranagat National Wildlife Refuge and the town of Alamo, NV.  We didn't stop on this trip- but if you have not been here you should!  There is a wetland that has great camping (seasonally) and we have been there a few times.  Even if you just pull off and take a stroll around the shore it is worth it.  We just stopped at the historical marker-

Here are a few shots of another trip we took out there, pretty right?  Also unexpected to see a wetland in the middle of a scrub desert.

From Alamo we take 93 to The Extraterrestrial Highway (or NV375)!!!

Right after the highway sign we see another historical marker-

This one marks this tiny town (ghost town?  Collection of empty houses?) of Crystal Springs.  I guess it had a lot of historical significance in the creation of Lincoln County.

Now we were headed down the highway towards famous Rachel Nevada!  This is the point of our whole trip so we got pretty excited.  I expected to see a LOT of touristy alien stuff- but really I saw a lot of middle of nowhere.  I guess it makes sense- all the land to the right of us for the entire 8 hour drive (the stuff in the loop) is owned by the government, fenced in and if you go far enough down any road in that direction you will hit what is probably one of the best guarded fences in the the world.  On the other side you have open grazing land, scrub desert and a whole lot of nothing that is central Nevada.  For something that is so famous- it is strange to me how undeveloped it is.  Just goes to show how incredibly inhospitable most of this state is.

Right off the highway we saw this building, and then this sign was the last bit of civilization we saw before hitting the Black Mailbox.

Area 51 and the Test Site are right over that mountain range.

Now we get to The Black Mailbox.  We decided it was not cute enough so we made it cuter!

Not far past the mailbox is the adorable Little A'Le'Inn in Rachel NV.  I have to say Rachel is not much of a town, and although there were a fair number of tourists there (6 or so) it was not some Vegas-esque spectacular sight.  In fact it was small, adorable and there was not even a slot machene in the place!

Here is a picture of the entire town of Rachel, NV.

We had a great meal at the A'Le'Inn, I recommend the Flying Saucer Burger, it was very good.  I wish I took a picture of the inside of the place, full of alien pictures on the walls and alien stuff at the gift shop.  It was quaint, rural and also very worldly and geeky- a strange place.  We were able to sit on benches outside because we had Kerri, they were very nice about that and it was actually pretty fun to look around.  Outside there is a time capsule that was placed by Twentieth Century Fox as a publicity thing for the movie Independence Day.  Here is Kerri checking it out-

The first thing you see coming into Rachel is the "environmental monitoring station."  They are pretty wordy in their explanations of it, and it takes a lot of weather data, but from what I gathered it mostly exists to make sure the nuclear radiation coming off the test site is not irradiating the locals.  Don't get too excited about the town of Rachel though, they are all over the southwest.  Here is a map.

Kerri is checking the weather and level of radiation in the air.

Right next to the station is the sign for the Little A'Le'Inn and a broken down spaceship.

Sometimes I see pictures like this and I can't believe how small my dogs are!

Once you get past Rachel you take the Extraterrestrial Highway a little bit longer until you hit US6 and take it west.  At the Junction of 6 there is a cool little ghost town.  We didn't get out and look around because the place was all barb wired in and we were not in a breaking and entering kind of mood.  It seemed like really a ghost town within a ghost town because there were these old, old abandoned buildings-

Then there are these newer abandoned buildings

Next we head down route 6 to a bunch more of nothingness and scrub desert approaching the town of Tonopah.  At the time we did not know we would be driving by the Tonopah Test Range.  The Test Range is one of the few things the government admits exists on the inside circle of this drive.  You should check out the link to read more about it- if things like that interest you.  They have stored a lot of cool planes there and it still remains an active airport shuttling employees from McCarran Airport to the test site and whatever else is in that chunk of land.  I don't know why we didn't stop and take a picture of the sign at the range- it was really cool- but I guess we were in a driving mood.

We also saw a herd of wild mustangs on our way past the test range.

(I promise there is a herd of mustangs in that picture, look really close, and they appear more as little black blobs than as horses really)

The rest of the drive is just lots of scrub desert and the occasional town.  In Tonopah you meet up with US95 which you take south all the way back to Las Vegas.  I didn't take any pictures in Tonopah, but it is where we lost Ben's keys, a frightening thought due to the cost of automatic car door openers keys that can only be bought from Hyundai.

Here are some pictures of the rest of the drive.  We didn't really stop any more except to buy some cheese stuffed olives I saw on the side of the road and to get gas once. Kerri made friends with a few truckers being the socalite that she is.

The town of Goldfield Nevada.  I am sure there is a lot of history there, but we were more focused on the UFO and Government Conspiracy aspect of the trip than the history of Nevada.  Maybe next time.

Beatty, NV.  Probably the busiest of the little towns, it is close to Death Valley and also very pretty, carved into the rocks.

Our only UFO sighting!  Or the sun behind a cloud- you decide.

These are some sand dunes about an hour outside of Las Vegas.  We plan to borrow a friends 4x4 and check them out sometime.  Another interesting fact that may or may not be true- according to the random information in my spouses head the prison right past these dunes is the one that houses OJ Simpson.

Thanks for reading everybody!  I know this was not too dog related but it was a fun trip and Kerri sure enjoyed herself.  Plus we got some ADORABLE pictures.  Anyone who likes car rides should for sure do this one, its a long haul, but lots of cool stuff on the way.

Big Bear Trip Part 2

If you have been around these parts for a while you know we LOVE to visit Big Bear Lake California!  Check out one of our previous trips here.  This time we brought some friends and had a BLAST.  The cabins we stay at are very dog friendly.  The owner has two dogs and unlike a lot of other "dog friendly" places- you don't feel strange hanging out with your dog here.  We had a boxer a few doors down, two border collies next door and the owner was always happy to see our little guys.  If you are ever staying in Big Bear I could not recommend Cabins for Less any more.  They are the best place to stay- you certainly should check them out.

The other great thing about Cabins 4 Less is that they have super cheap kayaks if you are staying there!  We took Copley and Kerri out on two and it was a lot of fun.  We started with both dogs in our Kayak, but as you can see Copley soon decided we were boring and spent most of his trip on the other Kayak.  You can see him sitting with our friend Paul looking very majestic.  Kerri- in her typical undecisive manner wanted to get over on the other kayak- then when we got too far away from each other she wanted back.  Then she wanted back to the kayak Copley was on.  Since we try not to let our dogs be totally insane around guests we made her stay on our kayak and calm down.  Eventually she got the picture.

One thing that surprised me is that a lot of people commented on the dogs life vests.  In fact more than one person said "what, dog's can't swim these days?"  It was a little annoying to hear over and over that we were crazy to put life jackets on our dogs.  The thing is our dogs can swim.  Without a life vest they can actually swim pretty well.  But these are tiny dogs in a huge lake.  Even if they were great swimmers- if there was an emergency would they really be able to find where shore is and make it all the way there?  Also Kerri is literally the color of lake water- so without a life vets how would I find her if we were separated.  Maybe the passer byes were right- and I am some crazy dog lady.  I tend to think that life vests are a good idea for pets, children, and any other person who can't make it to shore immediately if we were to be dumped in the water.  Maybe that makes me nuts- you decide.

Now I know I am nuts because I always get the dogs an ice cream at the gas station on the way there.  It is our typical road trip tradition.  This time they got to lick the vanilla center out of a ice cream sandwich.  Nova enjoyed some too but preferred to stay in her carrier at the busy gas station.

I admit this is not very healthy- and my dogs would not get ice cream every day.  Also yes it is possible Copley ate a chip or two- but two milk chocolate chips are not going to kill him.  Seeing as my dogs are not overweight and the ingredients in human grade vanilla ice cream are way better for you than a lot of the sugar and beef byproduct filled commercial dog treats out there I don't feel bad about giving it to them once a year at a hot gas station.

Here is the closest thing I got to both dogs looking at the camera this weekend.  What can I say, there were a lot of chipmunks.  Those bandanas are soaked in cedarwood oil for pest control.  We don't have fleas, ticks, mosquitoes or really much of anything in the Vegas Valley so our dogs are not on any sort of topical preventative.  Up in Big Bear this time of year there are not really many bugs either but there are a few so our holistic vet suggested using something like this.  When we go to actual bug infested areas I am curious to see if it does anything.  There is so little of a bug problem in Big Bear I can't really tell of cedarwood scented bandanas are at all effective.

To give you an idea of the landscape check out this shot from my first chair lift ride ever (girls from Miami don't ski- so I never had a real opportunity to ride one before).  The dogs of course could not ride the chair lift but that was OK.  They were pooped by the end of the weekend.  Lots of new smells and animals and people to check out.  Plus we did a lot of walking down to the fishing hole and looking at ducks.  It was mostly just nice to get out of the heat.  Now that we are back in this heatwave Vegas is looking at 116 degree highs for the next five days.  The poor guys won't be leaving the house until at least the 5th!

Also one more thing- I am the featured blogger of the week on Pet Blogs United!  Check out the post and all the other bloggers on PBU by clicking on the button-

To Big Bear again- Nova's First Vacation

That right there is a picture of the first time I ever saw Nova pant because she was hot/happy/exhausted.  Not because she was so stressed out she was foaming at the mouth.  So the short version of this vacation is that Nova was with us, and had a good time.  I could not ask for anything better in my life right now than this little dog enjoying herself.

The long version is that as with all things Nova it was a little more complicated than that, and the rest of us had a BLAST!  Lets stick to the Nova part for this post and I will give you all the great vacation pictures tomorrow- sound good?

I was a little worried about taking Nova with us.  The few times we have left for one and two night camping trips I had people stop in on her here at the house.  We went on one week long vacation and Nova's favorite people (who are some of my favorite people too) stayed at the house with her.  When we got Nova me and Ben agreed she was going to just have to live our life with us.  Just because we had a timid and scared dog did not mean we would stop camping and going away for weekends, or having dinner parties and people over for game night.  It might mean that sometimes Nova stays here, and is a little lonely, or that sometimes she has less freedom than the other dogs, but either way we were going to keep living our life.  That is not to say that we would not make accommodation for her.  Believe me- I feel like my whole life is turned upside down accommodating her sometimes- but it means we were not going to let the rest of the family suffer because she was around.  Overall she has adapted pretty good to living here.  Pushing her (gently) to participate in family activities has only yielded good results so far.  So I loaded her pen and bed into the car, put her in the car bag, and toted the little thing off to a cabin in the woods with us.

My decision to take her was helped by the fact that we were traveling with the previously mentioned "Nova's favorite people".  Or should I say Nova's favorite person and his girlfriend who Nova also likes a little more than most people.  In the higherarchy of people in Nova's brain it goes a little something like this.

#1 Favorite Person on the Planet- Annie (me)

#2 Favorite Person, only person she ever liked the first time she met him- Paul

#3 Person who she will cuddle with in a pinch- Missy (Paul's Lady)

Everyone Else On The Planet

#1 Most Hated Person- Ben (Mr.DogInTheDesert)

 

Both of my chihuahuas love Paul for some reason.  I don't really know what it is but I think he needs a T-shirt that says "Chihuahuas Love Me."  I can't really blame the dogs for loving these fine folks- the humans in the house think they are pretty cool too- I just don't really know what it is about Paul in particular that Nova finds so appealing.  What I really don't know is why Nova HATES Ben so much.  But that will have to be another post entirely.  We are here to talk about Nova's vacation.

She did great.  I think in the end she actually liked seeing some new stuff.  For the most part she hung out in the cabin.  At night we would sit around the barbecue grill cooking and Nova had a good time coming out and chilling with me.  Mostly I held her and she perked up a little bit, looked around, and chilled out.  She got so relaxed she decided to take a selfie with my front facing camera but *someone* had to photbomb it.  Thanks for being creepy Paul.  Maybe that's why Nova loves him so much- he has her strange sense of what is socially appropriate.

When we went off for the day she stayed in her pen with her bed from home.  She didn't seem to mind much- and actually we spent a lot of time chilling in the cabin- so most of her weekend looked like this.

When Ben was not around it looked like that except that she was not staring at him.  She is getting better and better with him, but still always wants to know where he is.

Overall I am glad I brought Nova.  She was getting a little bored and under-stimulated sitting around the house all the time.  A change of scenery seemed to do exactly what I hoped it would- challenge her, interest her, and get her out of her shell a little bit.  Living with us she is going to be in for new adventures so getting her used to it now- and slowly- is what needs done.  I was prepared to sit in the cabin with her the whole week if I had to.  There was a possibility that this would be less vacation and more dog training in the woods, but I was ready for that.  Like everything with Nova so far she surprised me, stepped up to the plate, and while she was timid about everything new she did manage to find a safe space and enjoy herself a little bit.  If you told me she would be on vacation in June when I met her in December I would not have believed you.  Now knowing her abilities and tenacity I wouldn't be surprised if she is doing obedience in a room full of people next year.

Be sure to check out our next post about how fun Big Bear was.  Here is a little taste of how amazing of a weekend we had-

More to come everyone.