The Jan Alfano Trail parkrun - Arizona isn't just for deserts

I'd participated in 126 parkrun events (74 running, 52 volunteering), but all of them had been at the Byxbee parkrun event in the San Francisco Bay Area. Finally, with the opening of the new Jan Alfano Trail parkrun, Mrs Notthat and I had a chance to be parkrun tourists since Prescott Arizona is roughly on the way to Colorado, where lots of my family lives. 

When you think of running a 5K in Arizona, it's hard not to think "just run from this cactus past Fred the Gila monster and the people frying eggs on the sidewalk to the cactus that looks like a vulture, then turn around and come back, and try to ignore all the bleached bones scattered along the trail."

It turns out that the Jan Alfano Trail parkrun has almost no cacti, Gila monsters, or bleached bones, and only a few people frying eggs on the sidewalk. The biggest surprise was the altitude - Prescott is a mile-high city, which can be an issue if you are from a sea level area. The biggest non-surprise was that there was sun. A LOT of sun. The start was at 7:30 so the sidewalk egg fryers were not having much success since it wasn't THAT hot yet.

A map of the out-and-back course. Note the lake! (Also note that the road to the left is named Willow Creek Road and the road along the bottom is Willow Lake Road - I'm guessing that's never caused confusion ever.)

Mrs Notthat and I had no trouble finding the start, and were happy to see lots of close parking.

Mrs Notthat listening to the pre-run briefing. Note that there is shade! Also note that the guy in the white shirt standing next to Mrs Notthat was the only other tourist - he was from Europe, was working in Las Vegas, and drove down from there just for this event. Oh, and he finished first.

Being a new event, the number of runners is still fairly small (22 finished the day we ran - I got a top-20 finish!). But the atmosphere was still fun and wildly supportive. 

TOTALLY UNEXPECTED SHADE!!!

One very nice surprise was that there was periodic shade along the course! (Byxbee has none.) There were still lots of very sunny sections though.

First place already on his way back.

Once the course got close to the lake, the scenery factor jumped to ten.

Willow Creek Reservoir and its rocks.

I loved running through this rocky area. 

Mrs Notthat, who loves the sun, but not so much the altitude, on her way back from the turnaround. One fun thing - this was her 200th 5K run (including those outside of parkrun).

The trail was generally fairly smooth gravel/dirt, although there were occasional rocks and such that you could trip over if you weren't a little bit careful. It was reasonably flat with a few small hills scattered around (my watch said there was 83 feet of climbing). There were also a fair number of non-parkrunners out there - if you have any thoughts of getting a walk/run in in Arizona, you really need to get up and out early.

"Which way do I go?" I warned the brave volunteer at the turnaround that I was about to ask the dumbest question she had ever heard.

Not sure if this counts as a cactus or not, but the fact that it would hurt if you tried to pick one of these flowers at least puts it into the running as one.

 

parkrun paparazzi!

The finish! Finally!

And that's about it! We had both managed to finish without mishap - no Gila monsters, no cactus thorns, and minimal sunburn.

It was a total blast running this event - it was only their third one! I really hope that the event catches on and the numbers go up a bit, but it's also really nice to have it at its current size. 

A post-run Mr and Mrs Notthat - sweaty but still smiling!

A HUGE thanks to all the volunteers that made this event possible - such a fun course and community! We ended up staying in Prescott for one more night before heading up to the Grand Canyon (fun fact - it's at an even higher altitude, around 7000 feet!). 

That's it - move along…

PS: Here is a link to a thing I wrote about the Byxbee parkrun.

Yosemite in April is for waterfalls

 Similar to last year, a friend of Mrs Notthat ended up with an unused reservation at Yosemite Lodge, so we grabbed it and spent Monday through Friday in the wonder that is a Yosemite springtime.

Is springtime the best time to visit Yosemite? That depends on what you prefer:

The good:

• The waterfalls are insane. Look at any valley wall and you will likely be able to spot at least a tiny ribbon of water running down its side. The main waterfalls are flowing with unmatched enthusiasm.
• The crowds are not insane. There are still a lot of people there, but it's not like it will be in a few months.
• It's not hot. This can be a mixed bag, but in general, it will still be cool at night and in the shade during the day.
• It's green everywhere.

The bad:

• Not everything is open. Tioga Pass and Glacier Point are closed. All of the valley restaurants and services seemed to be open though. Some trails are closed, although these tend to be the more aggressive ones that most people wouldn't try anyway.
• It can be cold and wet. We had a front move in Thursday evening that brought wind and rain. 

This was off our room's deck. The dogwoods had just started blooming a few days before we got there.

The main view off our room's deck. Pretty nice! (We had a great view of Upper Yosemite falls out our front door, but that was only seen when we went through the door.)

Tuesday was predicted to be the nicest day of the week, so we chose that day to do our most aggressive hike - to the top of Vernal Falls. Neither of us have done any hill training recently, and the hike to the top of the falls is a significant climb (about 1800' the way we went, over a bit more than six miles total).

We took the bus to the Happy Isles stop, then started up the paved bit of the Mist trail to the bridge. This is a fair climb all on its own, but is very popular and there were lots of people making that trek. At the bridge, there are toilets and a place to get water, but both were closed due to a dangerous looking tree. 

At the bridge, looking at Vernal Falls and our goal.

We now had to make a decision - keep going up the shorter, steeper Mist trail, which is guaranteed to make you very wet, or go up on the John Muir trail, which is longer and will require you to climb a bit higher than necessary, but will keep you dry. 

We failed to bring any ponchos to keep us at least a bit dry, so we chose to go up the long route. 

There were a few places on the trail where snow was still present.

The trail is nice, although there are a lot of switchbacks (which make the trail not as steep as a more direct route would be, but also make it longer). The one thing I hadn't realized is that the long route actually takes you well above the top of Vernal Falls.

See those tiny people on the lower-right? That's where we were headed. It still looked a long ways away. 

At the top of the climb, there is a spur "trail" that takes you down to the top of Vernal Falls. This trail was pretty challenging, both in difficulty and in just trying to feel comfortable that you were actually on the trail - it was pretty vague in a few places.

Also worth noting is that the John Muir Trail was closed at this point - you could not continue up it to the top of Nevada Falls. (You could still get to the top of Nevada falls using the Mist trail though. Supposedly you don't get very wet on that section of the Mist trail.) 

That's Nevada Falls on the right. On the left is the hulking Half Dome.

Us braving the squirrels at the top of Vernal Falls, eating a light lunch.

After finally making it down to the top of Vernal Falls, we had another decision to make - go back the way we came or go down the shorter Mist trail. Our initial thought was to go down the Mist trail and just get wet - that bit of "trail" we had just come down was not fun and we didn't relish going back up it.

That's the very wet Mist trail - note the people wearing ponchos. 

While sitting there, we noted how wet the people were as they came off the Mist trail. We also noted that going back up that pretend trail we had just come down would likely be easier, at least from the fall risk perspective. While it was nice out, it was not particularly warm - getting wet would mean getting cold, maybe really cold. Some of those that had just come up the Mist trail looked very cold.

So we chose to go back the way we came. (It was funny that when people found out we had come up the John Muir way, they had a lot of questions since they did not want to go back down that Mist trail. Telling them they would see snow seemed to sell a number of people!)

Diane looking over the top of the falls - it's kind of funny how being at the top of a waterfall is not as inspiring as seeing it from its bottom.

And that's about it for this hike - the climb back up that "trail" to the John Muir trail was indeed not as bad as it had been when coming down it, and going back down on the John Muir trail took a while but was uneventful.

That hike wiped us out. We did the Yosemite After Dark tour that night, which involved about a mile of flat hiking and headlamps.

Upper Yosemite Falls in the moonlight - taken as a long exposure with my phone. (There was talk of a moonbow at the base of the falls that night, but the clouds were mostly blocking the moon, so it likely did not go well.)

The next couple of days were nothing too special - we kept it simple while letting our sore muscles recover. We did drive over to see the new Bridalveil Falls area, which has been under construction for maybe ten years (it seems like) - the improvements were really nice, and the falls were stunning. (During the day, there is a lot of work going on in that area, so there are big traffic delays. We went later in the day and had no issues driving right into the area.)

As with all the big falls, you could get closer, but you would get pretty wet.

On Thursday, we used our bikes to ride from the lodge up to Mirror Lake. 

It had been a while since we had brought up our bikes, and they really were a great way to get around the valley - it was surprising how fast we could get from the lodge to the village area while just cruising along. (Taking the bus would have been 30-60 minutes while walking would have been maybe 20 minutes - the bikes were maybe 10 minutes.)

Eating lunch at Mirror Lake. It was nice when the sun was shining, even with the breeze!

Diane with the bikes. The bikes are really old and hadn't been ridden in years, so I had spent a fair amount of time working them over before this trip. It was worth it!

The breeze made Mirror Lake not very mirrory.

And that's about it. We went into the park on Monday using the 140 route, but had a couple of long construction-based stoppages, so we went home on the 120 route which worked fine.

Our hope is to go back this summer when more is open - one goal is to take the bus up to Glacier Point, then hike down the Four Mile Trail.

Yosemite is a special place that's worth some of the hassle (crowds, reservations to get in, wildly high prices for food and such). We're hoping to spend a bit more time at sites other than the popular ones (but the popular ones are popular for a reason!). We also would like to spend some time in the Hetch Hetchy area - there are some nice waterfalls and trails there too.

That's it - move along…

Momotombo SF - Getting down with Leo and the band

 I've known Leo and Virginia Rosales for many years due to the large number of trail races we've done together. Leo is fast and must have a large closet filled with age group awards. 

I also knew that Leo was involved in a band called Momotombo SF, and that the band was a collection of many talented musicians, largely from the Malo and Santana bands, as well as others. (One sort of funny thing - I was pretty sure that I had never heard any songs from Malo. Boy was I wrong. Suavecito was a very popular song that is so good to listen to.)

On Saturday afternoon, Mrs Notthat and I went to see Momotombo SF play at the free Rock the Dock concert series that happens in Redwood City CA - it's a fun, outdoor, and casual venue that we have seen a number of bands play.

We arrived a bit early and were surprised to see so many people already there - we brought a couple of folding chairs and set them up on the grass near the building the stage faces, and that area was fuller than it normally gets. This was especially surprising because, while it was sunny, there was an aggressively cold breeze blowing off the bay. 

I knew Leo did percussion, so I expected him to be shy, and hanging out on the back of the stage. I was wrong on so many levels.

That's Leo front and center.

It turns out that Leo is the frontman for the band, and did most of the talking in between songs. 

I expected a large dose of Latin rock, and I got that. But it was a lot more than that - you could tell the band was really into grooving and improvising - I kept thinking that this must be similar to what you might hear at a Grateful Dead concert; a group of excellent musicians giving each other the room to take the music well beyond what you would hear in a studio.

As you can see in the video, there was a large group dancing at the front of the stage, plus others scattered around dancing. It was hard to sit still. Our deal was that, with the cold wind, we could leave at intermission if we weren't feeling it, but that turned out to not be an issue for us (and I saw very few others leave early). Once it was all over, I went up to say "hi" to Leo and Virginia.

There were a lot of people that wanted to talk to Leo after the concert - I knew he was exhausted, but he stuck around and happily talked to all of them.

Virginia (on the left, with the flowers on her hat) taking care of the t-shirt sales table.

And that's about it. I loved that Leo shouted out Virginia several times during the concert. I loved seeing the two of them in a completely different venue than at a trail race (it's funny how different people look when you are so used to seeing them under wildly different circumstances).

The band has a number of concerts lined up over the summer - those of you used to seeing Leo and Virginia dodging poison oak and rocks and puddles should take advantage of any chance you have to watch them do their thing.

That's it - move along…

Attending a Jeopardy taping, Masters style!

Note: I'm skipping over a lot of the basic bits about attending a Jeopardy taping, since that was all covered in an earlier post you can read here.

Ever since we attended our first Jeopardy taping last year, we have been on a mailing list that announces upcoming opportunities to attend another one. What we had attended previously was a standard show - the contestants were totally unknown by us. We both felt that it would be fun to see a taping of a special show; maybe a Celebrity Jeopardy episode or a Tournament of Champions episode. Normally though, they don't tell you what sort of show will be taping.

Last week we got an email announcing ticket availability for the taping of the Masters tournament - we were surprised they were that specific!

The timing wasn't ideal - there were things going on that week that meant this would have to be a quick trip, plus we were heading to Yosemite the following week (not a problem for Mrs Notthat, but for Mr Notthat, that's a lot of traveling and excitement in a short period of time). After talking about it, we signed up for the Wednesday morning shift (a bit unusual - there were three shifts on Wednesday, which works out well mathematically since there are six contestants that open with a round-robin style first round). We were actually going to see the very first two games of the tournament, and would get to see all six players*. 

This was going to be so cool.

Big differences from last time

By far the biggest change was that there were no longer any COVID issues. (Last year we had to prove we were vaccinated and wear a mask at all times in the studio.) 

Another change was that we had to sign an NDA where we promised not to disclose anything about the games we watched. (The games we watched will broadcast on May 1, so we don't have to wait nearly as long as we did last time to see them.) It's possible I'll say things in this post that they would rather I didn't say, but I think I'm pretty safe. (I will be watching for black helicopters though.)

Pre-taping bits

Last time, we arrived about an hour early, and sat around until our scheduled arrival time before anything started happening. (I remember not even being sure we were in the right place - there wasn't anyone around to ask.)

This time, we arrived about 25 minutes early (our scheduled time was 9:45). There were a LOT of people already there and many had already been checked in and received their wristbands! (My guess is that this was only because we were the first shift - later shifts likely didn't work that efficiently.) 

There were people that showed up after us, and I suspect some of them did not get in to the taping (they overbook, just like the airlines). The moral is to get there at least 30 minutes early.

The line to check in.

We filled out the NDA, showed our tickets, and got our blue wristband. (Orange wristbands meant you were someone pretty special, probably a contestant's immediate family or something like that. Purple wristbands meant you were also pretty special. Orange and purple people got in to the studio first. Blue wristbands were ushered in last and placed where ever there were were seats to be filled.

It feels like if your nickname is The Lightning Bolt, standing in a line shouldn't be a thing.

Mrs Notthat is really good at recognizing people. She gasped a bit when she realized that standing in front of us, with a purple wristband, was none other that Brandon "The Lightning Bolt" Blackwell, who we knew from the show The Chase. He also won the Jeopardy Teen tournament back in 2008, and had been in the Jeopardy Invitational Tournament that just finished (he did not win it). It was cool to see him there, just like a normal person. But with a purple wristband.

The metal detector line and a photo op of sorts. Plus, a bonus celebrity!

The next step was to stand in the line to go through a metal detector. I like to take pictures of people taking pictures, so I grabbed the above shot. The amazing thing is that woman in the brown jacket you see looking off to the left, just ahead of the guy in the white shirt. She is none other than Alison Betts - at the time of me writing this, she is a five-game winner in the normal tournament that is currently being broadcast. It was great to see her there, but it was also a bit odd since mortals have no idea how long she is going to keep going (her episodes were taped at least a month ago - it's possible she is pulling a Ken and is still going, or she lost at some point).  Once we were in the studio, we recognized a few other previous contestants. That was pretty cool!

Waiting to get to hike to the studio, looking at the Jeopardy/Wheel of Fortune store.

After we got through the metal detector, we were sent over to a visitor area that was connected to a store with lots of Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune stuff. Last time we were here, I remember being surprised that there wasn't a merch store - I now realize that there was one, it was just closed due to COVID restrictions. 

We stood around there for a while before we were organized into color groups; the orange people headed out first, then the purple, and finally us blues. (Tip: We had no idea what was going to happen as we were milling around there. Knowing what I know now, as a blue person, I would hang out near the far wall, like you were going to the toilet, as close to the toilet doors as possible. Those ended up being the first blue people to get seated - earlier seating gets you a better seat, but man, all the seats were pretty good.)

The masses heading to the studio. The orange and purple people are WAY out front. We were nearly at the very end of the blue line.

Once we reached the studio, we ended up standing around for quite a bit. Mrs Notthat chose to soak up some sun.

It's a bit of a walk to the studio. We had a fair amount of time to stand around outside the studio once we got there, so I asked one of the people herders what they did if it was raining - they don't want to have to deal with dripping-wet people or umbrellas. It turns out they use a shuttle bus to drive people to the studio, and it is a LOT more work for them. Fortunately, that does not happen very often.

Finally going in to the studio.

We were told MANY times that you can't take pictures in the studio, and they really wanted people to turn their phones off. When I took the above picture, it triggered a new round of "no more pictures" warnings. 

Once you are in the studio, there are a number of people keeping an eye on all of us - I suspect you could probably take a picture or two if you are particularly sneaky, but there was no way I was going to take that chance - I'm sure you would be told to leave.

The actual taping

So that's about it - there's really not much I can say. 

The actual taping goes pretty fast. There are times you desperately want to yell out the answer/question, but holy cow would that cause trouble. Since this was a Masters Tournament, there were more odd shots and such that had to be done, so it took longer to get through the two shows than we had expected. (Ken also had to redo a number of lines that had not quite gone perfectly the first time. Also, there were shots of family members in the stands, which took a surprising amount of time to capture.)

One funny thing - Jimmy McGuire, former member of the Clue Crew who is now a kind of MC for the taping, was busy doing his thing, keeping the audience pumped and coordinating between the host, contestants, and the crew. At one point, I heard him refer to Mr. Jennings as "Kenny." I have no idea why this struck me as super odd (it's possible there is a member of the crew that he calls Kenny just to differentiate between him and Mr. Jennings, but I'm pretty sure he was referring to Mr. Jennings). Ken has always just been Ken - calling him Kenny or Kenneth just had never occurred to me before.

After the taping

One thing that happened while we had so much time standing around, was that Mrs Notthat found out that there was a studio tour in the afternoon at 1:30. We figured that we would be done with the taping in plenty of time to get some lunch then go on the tour. (My biggest worry about the tour was that it would make our escape from LA a lot more challenging since it would put us closer to rush hour. My biggest worry was reasonably justified.)

Our tour passes.

As it turned out, we got back to the parking garage from the taping just in time to check in for the tour and head out on it. (I was really glad we had eaten a big breakfast.)

The tour was fine - lots of interesting bits and such - but I had trouble not thinking about the traffic steadily getting worse and worse. 

Outside of the John Williams Music Building, which contains the Barbra Streisand Scoring Stage. I loved that big red treble clef!

Then a surprising fun thing - as a souvenir, they took a picture of each of us in front of a green screen and super-imposed us over a Jeopardy backdrop later. The coincidence of the Jeopardy bit and us having just sat through a Jeopardy taping was pretty impressive.

The photographer took a second shot saying that if we had won Jeopardy, we wouldn't look so surprised, but I can assure you that if we won Jeopardy, we would be very surprised. I was glad they printed this one.

Another kind of funny thing - while on the tour, our guide was informed that there would likely be some openings for the 4 PM Jeopardy shift** - Mrs Notthat really wanted to do that, and it would have been fun to see, but it meant getting a really late start for heading up north and going another couple of hours without food or water. I don't do that well without food and water for that long of a time. Also, our goal was to get at least a couple hours towards home - we really needed to get back by mid-afternoon the next day, and this would make that much harder to do. So we passed on that 4 PM shift.

And that's about it. After the tour, we took surface streets to get on the Pacific Coast Highway (highway 1) to get out of town. It would have worked out pretty well except there was a massive slowdown at one point due to a lane being closed by a landslide that looks to have been there for a while.

It was a quick trip, but a successful one. We will have to do this again in the future.

That's it - move along…

* The Masters contestants are:

• Matt Amodio
• James Holzhauer
• Mattea Roach
• Yogesh Raut
• Victoria Groce
• Amy Schneider

** They normally don't want you to attend multiple tapings on the same day, but we were told that in this case, it would be fine since we weren't going to be taking a spot from someone else. Probably. 

PS: If you are interested in attending a Jeopardy taping, click here to get details and dates that are available. (There are lots of shows taping in May.)

Kaya never saved Timmy

Note: This is kind of long, but there are a lot of pictures. It also could be triggering if you've ever suffered the loss of a loved dog or cat.

Kaya was a great dog. She never rescued a baby from a burning building, she never warned us that Timmy had fallen in a well*, and she had never learned to pick up her own poop.

No, her superpower was that she could eat. And weirdly, in addition to the normal things dogs eat, she loved to eat broccoli stems, asparagus ends, and bananas.

Her second superpower was being exuberantly adorable.

OK - this may be her being a bit too adorable.

Back in October of 2011, we were finally ready to adopt a new big dog, following the loss of our previous big dog, Teddy. You can read about him here. 

We found Kaya from a post on Craig's List. She was a one-year-old black lab/boxer mix - the family that she was with was having to move to a place that didn't allow pets, so she desperately had to find a new home. We loved her from that first meeting - she was definitely a full grown puppy with a ton of energy.

Mrs Notthat on Kaya's gotcha day, being a bit surprised by the length of her tongue!

The grandkids really liked playing with her.

A very young second-born grandkid losing at tug-of-war.

We were pretty active with trail races and hiking/running, and that fit right into Kaya's wheelhouse - she was a pretty good trail runner.

Mrs Notthat trying to keep up with Kaya.

Kaya's kryptonite was the sun though. All that black fur made direct sunshine her mortal enemy.

Kaya had had enough on this hike.

She ran a number of 5Ks with us. I tried to run a sunny 10K with her once that involved two loops (one of the races at the Brazen Dirty Dozen event in 2016). As we were finishing the first loop, she was excited and practically sprinting to the finish, where she knew there was food. A LOT of food. When I turned and started heading back away from the finish for the second loop, she put an end to that nonsense.

Kaya finding some shade and being perfectly content with a 5K. "Bring me some BBQ!"

About a year and a half after Kaya joined our family, we added Princess - an obnoxious little fur ball that easily matched Kaya's energy, but with about a quarter of the brains. They got along great together, with Princess absolutely convinced that she was Kaya's big sister.

Kaya and Princess sensing that there is food somewhere in the house.

One of Kaya's favorite things to do was splash in water.

Mrs Notthat and granddog Dove avoiding the puddle. Kaya wondering why it's not a bigger puddle.

She loved going for walks after a rain when the curbs were filled with water - she would just splash along in them as happy as a fish.

Kaya never understood why some water tasted so salty. This was with the grandkids, Mrs Notthat, and Princess, who would go through a lot of trouble to avoid touching water.

Kaya did really well around other dogs, although as she got older, she could get a bit cranky around high energy dogs, especially once she started to lose her hearing - she didn't like getting surprised.

Kaya with the old arrow-through-the-neck gag.

One fun thing was that she mostly tolerated the cats that we added in 2017.

Kaya sharing her bed with, believe it or not, our cat named Kaya! We didn't name either of them, but were astonished how this worked out.

Back in July of 2023, a little sore spot appeared on Kaya's belly that we didn't think too much of. At first we had her wear a shirt to discourage her from licking it, then finally switched to a cone once it became apparent that she was still licking it too much and it wasn't healing as fast as we thought it should.

Kaya trying to be a Giants fan, but man, where was their offense?

At first, the spot seemed to be healing, although maybe that was wishful thinking on our part. In the end, the spot kept slowly growing. Kaya did not seem the least bit bothered by it, other than wanting to lick it. She was still her normal active self - it was amazing how puppy-like she would act for a dog that was around fourteen years old!

Me bravely walking our two dogs and our granddog, Jax.

Kaya found a puddle!

Somewhere around this time, her vet started her on some medications and an ointment for the spot.

Kaya, Princess, and Mango all coexisting on the deck at the end of summer.

 

Kaya in a shirt and cone. She did not enjoy the cone, but it seemed to bother her a lot less than it would have bothered me.

By December, it became clear that the spot wasn't going to heal, and arrangements were made to get it removed, which happened in January. That's when we learned that it was cancerous, and that likely more would be appearing over time. But also, it appeared that it was pretty isolated just to that area, so maybe we would get a break for a bit.

Kaya generally refused to lay completely on her bed - for reasons that only made sense to her, she generally liked to lay half on/half off of it. 

We didn't get much of a break.

Within a couple of weeks a new spot started up. Unlike the last one, this one grew fairly fast, and its location made it a bit uncomfortable for Kaya to do one of the things she loved most that didn't involve food - walks around the block. So we set up another appointment to get it removed. The weekend before the second surgery, Kaya was acting very normal until Sunday evening, when it was like a switch had been flipped.

She suddenly found it difficult to stand or walk. She wasn't hungry. Even laying down, it seemed to be a struggle to get comfortable. I took her to the vet on Monday morning and a quick check revealed that the cancer had spread internally. A lot. 

Kaya resting her head on my hand while at the vet. She was so ready to be done.

I was glad I got to be with her at the end. I had to carry her from the house to the car, and once we got there, lift her out of the car, but surprisingly, she was able to walk into a little grassy area and pee a bit. Then, even more surprisingly, she walked into the office - it was like she was determined to be dignified while out in public, and getting carried by me was very not dignified.

Once it was all over and I left the room, the first thing I noticed were the candles at the front desk. I had noticed them on previous visits but had never seen them lit - there was a sign explaining that if they were lit, someone was having a very bad day and to please be respectful. 

Seeing them lit as I left nearly broke me. If people were wondering who was having a very bad day, they certainly were able to figure it out at that point. 

Then, a final funny thing (at least to me) happened. When I left the vet office, I saw a trail of poop balls from the little grassy area to the curb by the front door. I thought that was odd, and then it dawned on me that those were a last gift from Kaya, left as she walked, with her dignity, from the grassy area to the office. I grabbed a bag and picked them up, knowing that it was weird that this was making things a bit better.

The grand old girl Kaya saying goodbye. But she still wanted to know who Timmy was. And what a well was, for that matter.

It's so hard when a loved four-legged family member leaves. There is a huge hole left in the house. 

Princess knows something has happened, but seems OK. She is also getting up there in years (twelve or thirteen - nobody really knows), but being a little dog, and a mutt, she is still very healthy and active. She will get a lot more walks now (I couldn't bring myself to take her out for a walk while leaving Kaya at home once Kaya got to the point where walks weren't possible). She is still fine with longer distances - I'm going to try her out in a 5K on Saturday and see how she does (we can easily stop at the halfway point, but I doubt that will be an issue).

Heavy sigh…

Hug your fur babies. A lot.

That's it - move along…

* For you kids, this is a reference to an old trope that Lassie, a collie on a TV show named after her, often would come dashing into the house, letting the parents know that their idiot son, Timmy, had fallen into a well. Apparently there never was an episode where that happened, although Lassie letting the parents know that Timmy was in trouble really did happen remarkably often.