BevLive: tantalizing potential success

Amanda and her team, full of optimism before the terrible practice session

After all of our very successful practices, today's was pretty disasterous. We spotted the sheep about 200 yards out on the hill so we could run uphill, as we will at Soldier Hollow. Unfortunately, the sheep blended into the brush and tall grass so successfully that our dogs all ran out about 400 yards and totally missed them. We spent a frustrating hour at this, finally got in a couple of moderately good 100-yard gathers, and called it quits before it got any worse.

Amanda attempting to locate Clive, who was trying to find the nearly invisible sheep. Major frustration for dog and handler.

We were met at the bottom of the hill by a women in a big flatbed truck who had a herd of cattle coming down the road toward us. It seems three fields of cattle had gotten mixed together and loose. They had them all rounded up and were putting them in the field next to our campers, until they could get them sorted.

Cattle coming down the road

So Amanda, Marie, and I guarded the possible escape routes while 150 cows and their accompanying bulls and calves wandered past. 

A nice photo op for the tourists.

Once the excitement ended we headed out for Utah. It's only a 250 mile, drive but it's mountainous and secondary roads, so it's a hard haul. 

3:00 though and we were parking at Soldier Hollow. It's always so exciting to arrive at a trial, with all that potential success so tantalizingly close.

Herbert Holmes called me to say that he and his wife Alison had lost a wheel on the camper and were running late. So I held them a parking spot as it gets a bit crowded in the handler parking. Nice to see friends I only get to visit with once or twice a year.

It's 9:00 now and handlers are still pulling in. Been out to see the field. It's the driest I've ever seen it here. Today was quite warm–80s–and tomorrow is forecast to be even hotter. The sun here is really harsh and makes it feel about ten degrees warmer than the thermometer thinks it is. The shade is usually pretty comfortable, but of course the poor dogs will be running up that big hill in the hot sun.

Soldier Hollow trial field

Soldier Hollow has a web site so you can follow all of our fortunes tomorrow. We start running at 8:00 mountain time. Wish us luck.