By Skittles
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.
Not only were we looking forward to the RRR, we were also stoked to have so many of our good friends coming to the event that we hadn’t seen since Winter OR. Clint C-Dog, Mike and Sara ClimberGirl joined us for the weekend and OMG, we had an absolute blast! The social festivities kicked off in where else but the Last Vegas Strip for St. Patty’s Day. Though the boys were able to stay out of trouble we woke up to an RV full of strippers!
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, Desert Rock, as well as the Mountain Gear Retail Shop! Yeah!
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 Vegas would not be complete or made possible the one and only, John Wilder. He has in a way become part of the JTree family! We are already starting to plan our next trip to meet up somewhere, since we can’t wait until Summer OR in August!
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! 