Tahoe with Morgie

A couple months ago Shawn discovered there existed a sport called Skijoring, which is basically a cross between dog sledding and roller blading/cross country skiing. He was so excited at the possibility of Morgan pulling him around that he bought the whole deal right away- the harness, the belt, the book, etc. and started taking her out the day it all arrived. He's been practicing this (on roller blades) with gusto for the last few weeks. He's even had us start giving the dogs commands in sledding language. Anyway, this past weekend was the climax of these few weeks of training.
We started out our trip on Thursday night where due to some unexpected events we ended up staying at a motel in Davis for the night, a motel where Morgan got her very own double bed!!
Then we drove the rest of the way up on Friday morning and did a lot of wandering around looking for a place to eat, our cottage, the place to go play, etc. I think Morgan was feeling pretty cheated out of her big weekend with all the driving around, but we finally made it to TahoeXC and I think she forgave us for the 5 hours in the car. We had so much fun!! First of all, even with the lack of snow, it was beautiful.
Second of all, turns out I love cross country skiing. I was really nervous because I'm less than ideally coordinated and I'd never been on skis of any sort before, much less been tied to a dog while I did it, but after a rough start (I kinda stood in the same place for about 15 minutes, unable to figure out how to go up a little hill without sliding backwards) I got the hang of it and was loving it.
And thirdly, Morgan was in heaven.
This particular place didn't allow skijoring, but we figured on this first day we'd just let her run around and get used to the snow. It didn't take her long to do that at all. It was hilarious to watch her attack snow drifts and run along side us.
Although sometimes I found her running along side us distracting

Apparently, pine cones were a treat too.

Unfortunately, Morgan rained on her own parade by threatening to bite some guy, so after that we were pretty nervous to have her running around and we cut the fun short. We need Cesar. So anyway, we headed back to Tahoma Meadows, the cute little Bed and Breakfast we were staying at.
Here Morgan lucked out even more than the night before because, while she didn't get her own bed, this one was high enough for her to go underneath- a little bit of Paradise for this burier.
She went under there and pretty much didn't come out unless we left again. That night we napped, went to dinner at Sunnyside Restaurant, and watched Stunt Junkies (since we're kinda like extreme skiers now) and Top Chef.

The next day we had a hearty gourmet breakfast and went to rent some skiing equipment so we could just go out on our own. We headed off to a state park called DL Bliss and Shawn fitted up in the skijoring gear. So it turns out that DL Bliss isn't really that suited for cross country skiing. There's a main pathway that eventually leads to the lake and it's about 80% downhill. The main reason I found myself so in love with cross country skiing the day before was because it wasn't too scary. You could go fast . . . ish and slide and play and exercise without the feeling of being out of control. Anyway, this days' venue just confirmed my suspicion that I would probably hate downhill skiing. I fell every 100 feet or so. I didn't really mind falling- it made me laugh a lot, but after a while my knees weren't so happy.
Shawn had his own problems trying to get Morgie to pull. Unfortunately, she didn't turn out to be a natural at this sport. She gets distracted very easily and tripped Shawn a fair number of times. But it's a start . . .

So, as sad as it made Morgan,
we eventually decided it was probably best to head back up. We figured it would take a while since we'd only gone downhill going the other direction, but it actually went quicker. I guess falling downhill is a lot more time consuming than skiing uphill.
We ate some sandwiches that we bought earlier that morning and were going to go back out again but Morgan looked pretty tuckered out. So we spent the rest of the day just doing random things. At this point I wished I would have brought my real camera because it was so beautiful but it's still probably a good thing I didn't. I think it would have been too much to handle for a first time skier to be keeping track of a big expensive camera.
We went over to Squaw Valley to see what that's all about and watched the skiers and snowboarders there for a while. Morgan was quite popular there. Practically every other person either wanted to pet her or ask a question about her or made some comment about her. Unfortunately she was too nervous due to the noise of the ski lifts to enjoy any of this attention. We walked around the village a little bit, got some pizza and dessert back in Tahoe City and then went and got some massages at The Lighthouse Spa. If anyone is ever there, I highly recommend Rachel :). That night we rented Wag the Dog and went back to our little cabin.

So that was our trip. Now it's back to her barking at me all day long because she wants to be out playing.