The Avocato

Good news!  Lola is on board for the Colorado Trail thru-hike next summer. When I first suggested the idea she said she would be interested in doing a few segments of the trail, maybe two weeks' worth.  Over the past few days she's become kind of excited about the thing and, as of today, wants to at least attempt the whole thing with me. John has yet to commit. But what about our dog, Milo?  What do we do with him while we are hiking? (I am pretty sure that I have neglected to mention that Roxy, our first and best dog, died last November.  It devastated us as much a losing a dog can, which is not a little.  She died of a particularly swift and nasty anemia that put her fuzzy little black and white dog body at odds with itself.  Less than 48 hours after the diagnosis we had to put her to sleep.  This of course was after the veterinarian had raped us for all the money he could get.  Two sad months later we adopted Milo, who might be part Catahoula Leopard Dog, part something

Best. Summer. Ever.  As the kids say.  And it's true. I quit my job in February and in April signed up as unpaid crew for a five day ocean sailing voyage delivering a 50' Beneteau monohull sailboat from Charleston, SC to Annapolis, MD, which I have already written about.  That was just a warm up for the next big trip, though, which was an epic three week boat delivery on a Bavaria 50' from the British Virgin Islands to Bermuda to Maine.  A week after returning to the states,  John, my wife, our new dog Milo and I hitched the DaySailer (which we finally got around to naming:  "Reservoir Dog") behind Roscoe and drove down to Port Mansfield, Texas for a five day sail northbound along the Intracoastal Waterway in an annual event called the Texas 200.  John and I sailed while Lola and Milo hung out in Austin for a few days before meeting us at the finish line with Roscoe and the boat trailer.  It wasn't a race, but rather an "endurance event."  If yo