Monkey Wrench No. 1

2 Dogs 2000 Miles Asia is off to an inauspicious start. My feasibility team and I have hit the proverbial bump in the road. Or swell in the ocean. The problem is transport. 

How do the fuzzybutts and I cross the 5,800 mile expanse of the Pacific Ocean to Japan? By plane it's a 14 hour flight from LAX to Narita which would be easy but there is absolutely no way my boys will be stowed like luggage in some cargo hold all alone. 

How about a boat then? I love to be on the open seas but as we have recently learned, none of the cruise ships permit pets on board which to me seems particularly odd since travel and leisure with a companion seem to go hand in hand. Even if said companion is of the fuzzybutt kind. 

On to Plan C. Freighters. Believe it or not, you can actually catch a ride on one of those big container ships to pretty much anywhere around the world and the accommodations are better than the luxury liners. Just not with your dog. 

I haven't figured out yet whether it's a legal issue or silly superstition why there doesn't seem to be any poop on the poop deck but the term sea dog has a whole new irony to me. 

But I am a man unperturbed by such roadblocks. A Marine I met on the Great Allegheny Passage who was training for the AT put it perfectly, "Impossible only describes a degree of difficulty". 

We will find a way.

Of Glory In the Flower

"What though the radiance which was once so bright.  Be now for ever taken from my sight, Though nothing can bring back the hour.  Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower" 

Over the past few weeks some dear, dear dogs that I have met during our travels have either been diagnosed with cancer or passed from its singular determination. Wordsworth's poem somehow seems particularly poignant tonite.

Recipe: New England Naughty Hog

I'm well known for my breakfast tacos but the other morning I didn't have tortillas, cream cheese or even refried beans so I was stuck with a six pack of Portuguese sweet bread buns I had purchased at a Somerville bodega, a pound of pork, and a pint of French onion dip. 

And thus the New England Naughty Hog was born.  Here's how you make one.

Fry up 2 strips (or four for the more adventurous and cardiac unclogged) and in the bacon grease, cook a cup of diced potatoes.  I seasoned them with Thyme to add a hint of sweetness.  In the opened bun, my base layer is a couple of slices of maple syrup ham, topped with the home fries, then the bacon and a handful of cheese.  Try pepper jack for a little kick to it.  Broil it til brown and the cheese has melted then slather the other face with the French onion dip.  Don't be stingy - the sauce really makes the sammich.  

If you want the breakfast version, which I've made a few times, throw some scramby eggs in the mix - which I make with sour cream.  

As one of the first to try my latest concoction said, "It just feels good to eat it".  

And ironically and unintentionally, I happened to publish it today.

April Fools

We've played some pretty great pranks on our travels but last nite we punk'd the ultimate: Mommy G.

It's Ginger's first Puppy Up Walk in Memphis on the 29th and with all of the projects I'm managing it was impossible for me travel from Boston for it. But unbeknownst to her, the fuzzybutts and I have been secretly planning otherwise and Sunday we loaded up in a mini van, er man van I mean, and drove 1,300 miles to Tennessee.

I didn't think we'd pull it off. As some of you know, it's exceedingly difficult to get anything by her. But when we showed up at her door at 10pm Monday nite and scared the hell outta her - ah, sweet success! Mommy G got punk'd!

For the next two weeks, we'll be here helping her out as she did for us the moment we met her walking through Memphis in August 2008 and every day since. Puppy Up Memphis!