Prologue

Although I’ve got a pretty fat lifestyle, occasionally it’s imperative for me to get away from real estate in Central Oregon and the incessant talk about homes for sale in Bend Oregon.  My master and mistress had just spent a lot of time and effort securing a wonderful new listing in Odin Falls Ranch . . . a great 5 acre parcel with wonderful mountain views,  a nice home,

a very private pool,

a really foxy hunting dog named Bailey,

and a location right near the Deschutes River. . . but, I was starting to feel just a bit stultified hanging out in Bend.  As I have mentioned in other posts, the summer heat was starting to get to me; an intelligent pooch can only spend so much time chasing (and never catching!) bunnies and assorted rodents.

Roadtrip

I literally jumped at the opportunity my owners offered . . . a chance to accompany them on a trip to Colorado to attend a Woodstock (either you weren’t there or you don’t remember) style family event, but also a chance to see my idol, Lance Armstrong (I really like his old girlfriend, Carly Simon!), participate in the grueling “Leadville 100”–a one hundred mile mountain bike race, all of which is over 10,000  feet in elevation.

Even though I was crammed in the back with the supplies (an ignoble experience for a big brute like me who’s more accustomed to flitting about Bend Oregon neighborhoods in the co-pilot’s seat of a sexy Audi TT . . . see the photo at the top of the post), the time passed quickly as we raced across the Oregon outback, the keen cadence of an intellectual “book on tape” in an almost sensual synchronicity with the purr (sorry!) of the engine. Brothers, Millican, Burns.

We paused for the night in the “oasis” (my master’s word, certainly not mine) Juntura (I think that’s Spanish for “junction”), a hotbed for chukar hunting.

I don’t know how my master found this place; he surely is no chukar hunter!  But, for one of the few times in my life, I was actually embarrassed for him.  He’s normally pretty suave, but with the excitement of the new listing and the hurry to leave Bend, he’d forgotten some of the tent components.  I hesitate to even publish this sorry excuse for a sleeping structure.

The ubiquitous mosquitoes droned, dived, and attacked;

the semis roared by all night, mere meters from our sagging shelter.

We arose early (my master wasn’t walking too well . . . he’s usually pretty stoic, but I did hear him mumble something about a thin sleeping pad, sore hips and back.  I think he’s getting old!).

On the road again, we wound along the Malheur River, through Vale (I thought fleetingly of Solomon Tetherow and his wagon train; the hardships they endured on the Oregon Trail in 1845 . . . then I dozed), Ontario, Boise; to Mountain Home, Burley,  onwards.

To be continued . . .

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