Steep Learning Curve

I was going to blog this morning, but our new smart phone arrived and we have been wrapped up in the silly thing ALL day and night.

Larry had to run to every Verizon store in Auburn, there are three, trying and finally succeeding in getting all of our contacts from our ten year old flip phone into the new smart phone.  Larry hates it and once I get it all figured out, I will love it.

Backing up, on Saturday my cousin Darcy and husband Paul stopped for the night on their way home from Paul's support team participation in the 100 mile Western States run from Squaw Valley to Auburn.  It was nice to see them.

We were up early on Sunday to take Seth back to his parents, we met in Yreka and it was HOT in Redding, 113 and Sac, 111 when we returned home through there.  It hasn't been cooling off at night and is HUMID.  It feels like Los Angeles instead of the northern foothills.

Oh, and Gracie did rattlesnake avoidance class.  HOT day of course, but they had canopies set up and kiddie pools of water for the dogs to drink and swim in if needed.  They put shock collars on the dogs, the snakes have "muzzles" on their heads so they can't bite and a handler walks the dog through a course where there are three live snakes and a pile of freshly shed snake skin.  They get the smell, the sound and the zap of the collar which makes them think the snake has hurt them.  The dogs rest and settle down and they take them through again to gauge the dogs reactions.  Gracie circled as far away as she could on the end of her lead.  The last test is a squeeze chute where we stand at one end and the handler and Gracie stand at the other and the snake guy throws a very large angry rattlesnake in between and with us calling she is supposed to give the snake a wide berth to get to us.  She started to come straight at us at the snake...he moved the snake in front of her as she started to sidle around it and she moved far away...so she graduated.  We were there all of maybe a half hour.  They say we should do it for another two years in a row so the dogs get it embedded in their brains, we'll see.

So off I go to dream land, hoping Verizon can figure out why we can't generate a text, we can reply to ones we receive, the rep that was helping was puzzled, so of course we have to wait for a troubleshooter.  I might add that the "manual" that they supplied online was useless, I'll just have to find a child to show me the smart phone ropes.....hahaha.  I'm not re-reading so ignore any typos or weirdness you run across!