Distractions are Good

I need to stop ignoring all the stupid polling going on right now. It's giving me an ulcer. How can the American public be so bloody blind to the fact that Sarah Palin is NOT who she says she is?!? And how in the hell did the race get so damn close??

I'm beginning to think that McCain isn't as stupid as I thought he was when he picked her as his VP. I'm beginning to think he also realizes just how bloody stupid a large percentage of the voting public really is...that they would not only accept a neo-conservative, speaking-in-tongues-speaking, oil-loving, global warming denying, machine-gun toting creationist, they'd fall all over themselves to see who can adore her the most!

It's revolting to watch. And the worst of it all is the new Republican chant being shouted at all their campaign events, "Drill, baby, drill!"

Can someone please save America from all the fat, greedy, "consume till you croak", bible-thumping, Earth-raping Americans before it's too late? Please, America...WAKE THE F**K UP! This world cannot handle another four years of the Bush Administration!

Big sigh...ok, enough of my "elitist, left-wing liberal ranting." Sonja and I needed something to distract ourselves from the depressing state of American politics. So we hopped in the car with Harvey and Luna and headed for the hills.

We haven't explored much of the area outside of the park, yet, and as a result haven't had a chance to take the dogs for a good hike. To change that I whipped out the map this morning and tried to find a suitable road into the surrounding mountains where we could go exploring. I found a squiggly red line that looked promising, so we loaded up and headed out.


(as you can see, we didn't take Gilbert, our beloved mountain-climbing Subaru. He's been hibernating in the garage for the past month and when we tried to wake him up for the drive he responded with a resoundingly silent, "I ain't goin' nowhere"...Yeah, I guess we should have had that "service engine soon" light checked out when it turned on about a year ago, huh?)

Anyway, once we got to an elevation that seemed to get us above all the locals with chainsaws, we headed up the road to see what we could see.

We did find a pretty little mountain-top lake, but even Harvey found it a little too muddy for his liking, so we continued on.

While it wasn't the most exciting hike we've ever been on, the mountain air was incredibly refreshing, the views were inspiring and the dogs had a great time. And really, that's all we were looking for anyway.