Goonie: Monster, and Cutie Pie all in a 4-legged package

We had decided it was time. Mary was coming out to visit soon, and she was going to be bringing a dog, and once you have one around, you might as well have two. Not to mention mountain biking is a whole lot more fun when you have a third party to share it with. So we got Goonie. We picked him up at an Albuquerque animal shelter. It was soooo hard to chose just one, but this guy was for us. He's about 7 or 8 months old with never-ending energy and a rather tiresome habit of trying to gnaw off your arm. But he'll grow out of that right?

My new home

We stopped at the store to get some dog provisions- the frisbee was his water bowl. That's about the 7th time he had knocked it over in the last half hour.

mmm rawhide!

We took him to White Mesa to see how he was going to do off the leash and on the trails and everything. We were pretty excited that he seemed pretty excited to be with us.

Mighty Goonie

The moon rising over the mountains. White Mesa is definitely still one of our favorite places. Both for riding and great scenery.

He's a fast little bugger

awwwww

Goonie's first mountain bike ride

He did great. We decided it was best to keep him between the two of us so we could keep an eye on him, and he really seemed to like it. However, if he gets in front of the front rider there is a little bit of trouble, cause he then stops to check on how everyone is coming along...right in front of your tire. But we'll work on that too.

Unfortunately it will have to be a while before we can work on more mountain bike training. The day after this ride, we were out hiking with the Goon, came back and our bikes were gone! They had been locked to the rack on the van, and both bikes and locks had entirely disappeared. We couldn't believe it. It felt like a bad dream, but they were no where to be found.

Luckily, we do have insurance, and after a lot of discussion with the insurance folks it looks like both bikes are going to be fully covered. But it still really stinks, I would much rather have my old bike back then get a new one- but at least we're not completely out.

And then the next day it snowed. Goonie loved it- but it made driving out on the soup of a road a real chore. Mike wasn't sure if he was steering or not the whole time, but finally we made it the 4 miles out back to the highway.

Snow! snow snow snow snow

After talking to the police we were lucky enough to hook up with someone we had met at the trail. He put us up for the night in Albuquerque. And Goonie and his dog Chiquita had a blast together.