Our Book - "Peaks of the East"

Our Book - Only $10 Each!

Unbelievable! We actually did it! Spanky and I have written and published a book entitled "Peaks of the East." Amusing and entertaining chronicles of all our summits to date - 24 of em - hell thats half the lower 48. Please click on Peaks of the East for details.

Actual Reader Comments:

- I just finished reading your book last night - it is wonderful! It brought me back to reminiscing about my childhood, the simple life, and enjoying nature.
- A very enjoyable read.
- The book is timely and hits the right chords with a lot of us.
- Your book rocks!!
- We are living vicariously through you and Spanky.
- Loved the book!
- Finished the book this past week - a great romp!
- It's great! I'm loving it!
- Reading the book, I feel like you are talking directly to me telling me your stories.
- Your love for Spanky comes through on every page.
- Reminds me a lot of Andy Rooney or maybe Bill Bryson.

Meet Spanky

Hi everyone! My name is Spanky. As you can see, I'm a dog! I live with this dude named Rein Krevald (Weird name isn't it? he is Estonian - more on that later). The two of us are creating this blog to share our mountain climbing adventures with you. We are traveling around the country in our Dodge Ram pickup, hitting the summit of each state, and reporting our escapades to you. Hope you enjoy it. We sure as hell do! Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrf!

Spanky

PS You can click on "comments" below each post to add a little feedback. A little note on organization of our posts - we are posting our most recent updates last - the intent being that this reads more like a book - intro first, then our intitial summits etc. So go to the Table of Contents on the right to select the post/chapter you want to look at. And........if you want to see some great pics, click on "Spanky & Rein's Web Album" in the links list to the right of this post. Lastly, if you'd like to email us, our email address is rkrevald@gmail.com

What Is This All About?

My name is Rein Krevald - I'm the "dude" that Spanky (the canine team member) lives with. As Spanky already mentioned, the two of us have decided to travel around the US and hit the highest point in each state. It will be the first Canine, Human team to attempt such a feat. This blog will serve as a quick update of our activities. However..........it is rumored that a book deal is on it's way. So please follow us on our adventure, have fun reading this crap, and most importantly, buy the book when it comes out - we NEED the money!

The Top of Florida

January 28th & 29th, 2007
You are probably thinking, "Does Florida have any mountains?" The answer is an unequivocal no! The highest point in Florida is a place called Britton Hill. It tops out at 345 feet. That my friends is why Spanky and I picked it for our first summit attempt! We figured that we had a pretty damned high probability of success.

Britton Hill is located in NW Florida on the panhandle. It is actually in the Central Time Zone (most of FL is Eastern), about 25 miles north of DeFuniak Springs (look at a map if you are really interested), a few miles south of the Florida/Alabama border.

Me and Spanky bivouacked in a Gulf Of Mexico beachfront Motel 6 the night before our assault on Britton Hill. Our climb started just before dawn. We began from all the way down at sea level so we wanted to be sure not to rush things for fear of getting altitude sickness (pulmonary edema). Thus we took it easy on the 60 or so mile drive from the beach to Britton Hill. It was a beautiful sunny day but bitter cold (28 F)...........which did not bother us cause the heater in the truck worked just fine. I drank coffee, checked out the Florida countryside while Spanky slept in the passenger seat. By the way, Crestview, FL has a lot of guys that still sport mullet hairdos and wear camouflage. What's up with that?

At approximately 9:03 a.m., CT, Spanky set his paws, and I my feet, on the lofty summit of Britton Hill. Oh yeah, since Spanky and I are such seasoned climbers, we did not find supplemental O2 to be necessary. We caught our breath, grateful to be alive, and took in the view. Spanky immediately did what he does best when he is outdoors, he ran around in circles at full tilt. We played fetch the stick, Spanky and I both took care of some personal hygiene type stuff, and then we got down to business.

We had to do the mountain climber, adventurer thing. I retrieved my hand held Garmin GPS and verified the Latitude/Longitude and elevation. We had come so far and wanted to make sure that were in fact at the summit of Britton Hill. Next came out the camera (Nikon Coolpix) in order to document this feat of mountaineering. Now that I mentioned cameras, considering the pre climb media interest in this first ever canine/human assault on Britton Hill, there was in fact, no one there? I guess they were all busy with that Iraq thing or maybe the elections.

The first pic is me and Spanky on the summit next to the monument dedicated to all the fallen climbers that did not make it to the top. Next is the Walton County sign which marks this as Florida's highest point. Followed by a breathtaking summit view into the valley. Last but not least, Spanky on the beach.

Just to let you know. This is the first time I'm trying this blog thing. Hopefully I'll get better at arranging pictures and captions.

To see all the pics related to this post, go to http://picasaweb.google.com/rkrevald/FloridaSummit