July 26 - Hangin' with Hans

Kristen and Rob went to work, so we hung around with Kaitlyn and Hans for the day.  

Cooper totally enjoyed playing with Hans outside.  What a treat for Cooper to have a dog to play with.  

They ran and played and in the water chasing the quarter again.

It was a nice day of relaxation and not being on the bike for Cooper.  

He was really happy with his new friend.

Zero Miles

July 25 - Part 2 - Visiting Kristen, Rob and Kaitlyn

We got to our friends house.  Kristen, Rob and Kaitlyn met us outside when we arrived.  We parked in the garage.  There was a screen door leading out to the back yard.  Cooper spotted that screen door right away because there was a BIG BEAUTIFUL DOG on the other side of that door who REALLY wanted to come say hi.

Cooper got to go in the back yard with Hans.  They became acquainted and did their dogly greetings, then it was PLAY time.  They chased each other around and Cooper did his big mouth barking routine for a while.  Hans was really happy to play with another dog.  Cooper was too, but for the first time we got to see Cooper run out of energy before his playmate.  Hans is a two year old and Cooper is approaching five years old now.

Kristen had filled a baby pool on the porch for the dogs.  Cooper watched Hans in the water for a little while.  I could tell he wanted to get in the water too, so I encouraged him a little bit.  Once he was in there was no getting him out.  Jesse threw a quarter in the water that was REALLY interesting for cooper.  I was surprised how much he enjoyed pulling that quarter around the bottom of that pool.

337 Miles

July 25 - Part 1 - Riding Into The Storm

We made it to Montana.  What beautiful roads!  It was so wide open we could see a storm in the distance.  It was really kind of hot out.  Maybe 94* or so.  We were fairly comfortable as long as we kept moving, so that's what we did.

It was clear that the storm we could see in the distance was where we were headed.  As we got closer, I think Cooper could smell the rain.  He sat up and was really interested in the smell of the air.  

We started feeling rain drops every now and then, and then we got a fairly steady rain.  Nothing bad enough that we felt that we needed to put on our rain gear.  It felt good, UNTIL...  Heavy winds pushed our bikes all over the road.  What a scary thing.   My bike was pushed all the way across the road at one point.  It was a good thing no cars were coming.  I don't think Cooper liked the wind either.  He put his head down in the crate and just rode it out.