The McSchweenie Effect

It's been a few days since my last post and a lot has happened. We hiked up Mt. Chocorua, it was my 35th birthday and we found out Rudy is a Schweenie. All of these things were pretty significant events. We nearly killed ourselves and Rudy climbing the Piper Trail on Chocorua (we feel short of the summit by about 3/4 of a mile because The Rudester was seriously not digging the scene anymore.) We did manage to get a great view down into the Valley from about the 4 mile mark.



We were all three sore as Hell the next day from the hike. Rudy was especially sore because insult was added to injury when he was stung by wasps upon returning back to the cottage at Silver Lake after the hike. He was a trooper and bounced back right quick from his attack.

Next on the list is my birthday. On Friday I turned 35. It feels pretty good to be 35. Not sure why... I can't give any big explanation really, I'm just solid in saying that it feels right somehow. So, that said... I had a great birthday. Billy bought me a new mountain bike which was a fine idea and a nice surprise... we bought it from a sports shop up in North Conway and set the roof of the truck up with another new set of Yakima racks to hold my bike and his. So we will now have the kayak and two bikes riding on the roof of the truck when we travel. It's quite a show.



My Mom of course tore the roof off the joint by shipping me all sorts of goodies to celebrate with... gifts, brownies and pound cake from our favorite bakery in Hilton Head and funds to purchase sick amounts of ice cream to eat with said items. I went shopping by myself for a few hours in the afternoon on Friday and bought some new hiking shoes, Keen water sandals and most importantly... a headlamp. Everyone needs a headlamp... especially me.

Finally, the big news... the REALLY big news is this............ we have finally figured out what Rudy is. It's a long story including countless hours wandering through the image halls of Googledom but I finally landed on the answer. It is a weird and unexpected result. No one saw it coming. We all had it oh so very wrong. There is not an ounce of terrier in there anywhere... not an ounce. Instead what we have is this... Dachshund and Shih Tzu. (Gasp!) Who knew? Who would have EVER guessed it? What do they call this particular mixing of breeds? It's called a "Schweenie." Yeah. We have a Schweenie. A Schweenie crawls in our bed. We pick up Schweenie poop out on the streets and this morning the Schweenie puked in the truck while driving home from getting coffee. Somehow all this Schweenieness changes Rudy's image a bit for me. He does not seem like such a Harvey Keitel type bad ass anymore. Now he feels more like Danny DeVito. It's the difference between The Bad Lieutenant and Get Shorty... see what I'm sayin'? It's all good still... it's just a bit of a different flavor than what we thought it was.



Anyway... who would you rather have digging holes in YOUR backyard? It may be kind of scary to have Harvey out there slingin' dirt. But Danny DeVito? Sure! He's little, funny and will surely get the job done without killing anyone on purpose. Much better all the way around for everyone involved.

We are getting ready to wrap up our time here at Silver Lake. It has been our favorite and best stop over on this trip so far. We have met so many great people and have gained a real love for this area of New Hampshire. How can you beat times like this...