By Skittles and Torrent
Wow, what a weekend! For those of you who have not yet had a chance to attend or race the Sea Otter Classic in Monterey, CA - holy heck, what an event for both racers and spectators! First off, a huge shout out to, Skip, one of the coolest race directors we’ve come across. He hooked us up with a sweet booth spot for the weekend which literally made ALL the difference. Thanks for everything Skip!
Our time at the Laguna Seca State Raceway started on Wednesday night after a beautiful, but grueling drive up the PCH 1 from Santa Barbara. The Pacific Coast was a sight to see from our huge RV windows and we made a couple of touristy stops at the Hearst Castle and to see the elephant seals (who were beached to go thru their annual molting process - ewww gross!) along the way. However, after about an hour into the drive, the twisty, narrow roads got to us and we were so so glad to finally hit some freeway heading towards the race venue!
This was our first bike race of the trip and we were stoked to be able to get the word out about JTree products to so many racers, enthusiasts and fans. The weather for the 4 days of the race couldn’t have been any better - sunny and 70! Perfect! (Apparently, it beats the rain they’ve had at the race for the past two years.) To add to the excitement of our first Sea Otter, it was also a chance to see our friend Kelli, who was also racing for Giant bikes that weekend. It was really exciting to watch Kelli’s races and to cheer her on from our booth! I also had the chance to duck out of the booth for awhile to do a group pre-ride of some of the pro-xc course with her - good times! Both the Giant and Gary Fisher teams were hooked up with some JTree products over the weekend - we hope those folks enjoy our stuff!
As for our booth….it was probably our most EPIC event yet! We handed out over 1500 samples of our JTree Cycling Salve, and educated everyone receiving one that it is super awesome for healing road rash, saddle sores and just about any other skin irritation you could think of. A sick crash cream and chamois ninja sauce all in one! Booya! A great story from the weekend was this older gentleman that stopped by our booth after finishing the 100 miler Gran Fondo. Dave gave him the run down on our product line and he reluctantly took a sample saying that he would give it a try, even though he said that “this kind of stuff never works.” Well, the next day, bright and early as Dave was setting up the booth, he walks up with his wallet out to buy himself a big jar of our Cycling Salve. He didn’t say much, but his actions spoke louder than any words his nether region could muster praising our product!
After two beautiful days of Sea Otter Expo WE SOLD OUT OF SUNSCREEN! Unfortunately, we had underestimated the number of folks at the race who would be looking for functional and organic ways to protect their skin - both our Sun Stick SPF33 and Mountain Mint SPF 18+ were a hit!! We even had folks buying our Winter Stick SPF15 to apply to their arms and shoulders because of it’s smooth slippery feel. Hey, whatever works to protect your skin! Thanks to Torr for helping write this blog!
By the time we were wrapping up our play time in Arizona, I really couldn’t wait to get back to Vegas. The last time we were in Vegas we really didn’t have enough time to play and this time we were going to be back in town for two weeks for the Red Rock Rendezvous.
Fun on The Strip: check. Next stop: RRR! We had the best time over the course of the long weekend out at the Spring Mountain Ranch. A huge shout out to the folks at Mountain Gear: Paul, Phil and Alena! Without them, we wouldn’t have been able to be a part of such an amazing event…thank you, thank you, thank you! The exposure to so many climbers and mountain bikers was great and we were stoked to be picked up by the local gear shop, 
Aside from the “work” part of the event, we had a great time with all of our friends. Our RV, became somewhat of a home base for the JTree crew and it was like having a slumber party every night. I don’t think I went to sleep one night during the event that I didn’t hear “Do you wanna pet the kitty” only to be responded with thunderous laughter to put me to sleep. It was great and I can’t wait to hang with Clint, Mike and Sara again!
Post-RRR, we were able to get some chillaxin’ in and out to the park for a couple of days of climbing. We were also able to catch up with our friends Lisa and Tim, Loren and Salone, and my cousin Wyatt! We took Wyatt to Panty Wall and he did his first outdoor rock climbs ever with no falls!! I hope he had a good time and gets out rock climbing again sometime soon. 
Our time in the Phoenix area wrapped up with some much needed time on the bikes at McDowell Mountain Park followed by our first ever big time dog show in Scottsdale. The riding at McDowell was fun. I particularly enjoyed the competition trails they have there for the Arizona State Championship MTB circuit. There are two race loops, both about 2 miles long that are, for the most part, fast and fun! There are lots of other trails out at McDowell, and it was too bad that we didn’t have more time to spend riding.
In the weeks prior, we really didn’t know what to expect. What kind of customers would we see at the show? Were people there to buy, or just watch? Was Torr going to like it, or hate it because he would have to be on a leash the whole time? What would be the most ridiculous dog we would see? We pulled up to West World around 8:30 on Wednesday, the night before the first day of competition and OMG, this place was HUGE! And it was all for the dogs!!! David and I immediately looked at each other and said, “we didn’t bring enough stuff to sell!”
It was a big adjustment to get into the groove of things the first day. I think the hardest thing about it was that we just aren’t the typical, crazy dog people that were the majority of folks at the show. We don’t brush Torr unless he’s going thru his bi-annual shed. We don’t bathe Torr unless he just rolled in poop or dead animal. There are belly trims and butt cuts, but the grooming stops there. No fancy sheers or brushes. No every day shampoo or conditioner. And you can forget about the shining mist! It really doesn’t go much further than lake water and Costco shampoo where we’re from and Torr couldn’t be happier! 
And we usually don’t keep much of an eye on Torr while he is at shows because he just wants to tell everybody HI! But apparently if you are a show dog, you don’t talk to non-show dogs, and Torr thought that that was totally annoying!
It turned out to be a hit (especially due to the poor weather on Friday and Sunday)! Right when we were on a sales roll, in rolled the rain clouds! Boo. Do you know what happens when it pours over a dog show? Cold, wet, muddy mess that smells like…….! So we tried to make the best of the wet weather by sticking it out. We made Top Ramen in our JetBoil with rain water. We drank lots of hot tea. We did the penguin dance to stay warm. Then we gave up.
Before I sign off, I would like to give a shout out to the Trash Doctor and her Sidekick of the 
After implementing a new “look” for our booth, we were really excited to see if our design changes would pay off by bringing more people over to JTreeLife to check it out. The International Sportsmans Expo was a consumer show, and this being the case, we modified our display by switching out our standard 
This show was also a great opportunity to market our 
If you know Torr, you know he loves the water! So we signed him up, and he was allowed to practice jump as many times as he wanted and then do one competition jump. On his very first practice jump, he went 12 feet (and that was starting about 3 feet from the end of the dock!)! However, on his competition jump, he just wanted Dave to jump in too, so did more barking than jumping! Oh well, it was still two paws up from Torr!
First up on our February itinerary, the Western Hunting and Conservation Expo back at the Salt Palace. For us, the largest difference in going to this show was that it was a consumer show, so we were selling to the general public, instead of retail buyers and it was a 100% hunter demographic attending the show. It was really really hard to schlep our Sportsman’s Salve to those hunters! We got lots of “what is that?” and “no thanks” to our offers to try a sample of the Salve. However, once they came in to check it out, and we could see the state of the dry cracked skin on their hands, they saw the potential of the product. We met lots 
of folks in construction and concrete who were impressed that the product wouldn’t mess up their good calluses - hopefully we made some in’s with those folks! 
Several times during the show, David and I turned to each other and commented on how the JTree booth had seemingly become the show “hangout” for our friends at the show. And seeing a crowd around a booth, other folks would come in to check out what the “hub bub” was all about. This is a shout out to all our friends who hung at our booth - thanks for stopping by and come hang with us again this summer!
After three orders of the Black Magic Woman roll (our favorite) the server suggested trying the Seared Sable Fish and it was amazing. The night quickly moved on to a local bar where some poser in our group decided to start off with Jagger Bombs. (Ugh, we all know what happens to Skittles after starting with these!) Which were quickly followed by a round of Rusty Nails compliments of Chris. Chris being the proud West Virginian that he is, felt obligated to introduce us to some old time, backwoods, hillbilly whisky concoction, the Rusty Nail (fitting name for a drink that bad!). On all three attempts to try a Rusty Nail, they all tasted the same: strong and bad. There might have been some dancing involved with random bar goers at that place, though not exactly sure as things started to get fuzzy….
As our OR tradition goes, on the last day of the show, Jessica and I get our shop on when all the booths try to get rid of the samples they have to pack up by selling them at cost! We hit up the sales at IceBreaker and KAVU and both got some cute stuff. Jess even got a sweet pair of new mountain biking shades at Native! To continue with our OR tradition, we hit the slopes the next couple of days, taking advantage of our OR passes getting 50% off lift tickets at all the local SLC resorts - SAAAWWEEEEET! We spent two days after the show boarding thru knee deep powder at Snowbasin and Powder Mountain and commiserating on how miserable our lives really are! Can’t wait to shred some nar pow here again next year!
By Skittles 
It’s amazing how many people would stop to tell us what a beautiful dog we have. (I have to agree he is pretty cute!) Although Torr was super disappointed by how few other dogs there were to play with at the show, the highlight for him was a visit on Day 3 by his “brother” Porter. For being cute and well-behaved, Torrent received his second Dog of the Day award at the show! Good job Torr!
After picking up B from the airport and making a few important stops (dumping holding tanks…love that smell….and hitting up the liquor store for some booth essentials…whiskey and sweet tea vodka) we headed directly to the Salt Palace for booth set up. Sign-in and badge pick up: check. Unloading the RV: check. Finding our booth #32076: what the…. Long story short, what we failed to learn until we walked out on to the showroom floor was that our booth space was directly in front of the main door that leads to the loading dock. So unless we wanted to have our booth run down by forklifts moving crates and boxes into the showroom, we were not going to be able to set up until that door was permanently shut. Now the question was: when exactly would that be? Apparently that was going to be at 8pm the night before the show. Lucky for us we pack light and move efficiently! At 9:30pm our booth was finally set up. Now it was off to get some sleep!
