Hello, Rob Amon writing for Don this week. I am Small Dog Electronics’ Outside Sales Manager, in charge of our web and phone sales, corporate sales and up until recently, our wholesale operations. (Basically, if it is not retail, it likely falls on my list of responsibilities!)

As you receive your issue of Kibbles & Bytes this week, I will be starting my first day of a month long adventure I am taking with my two sons, Tymber and Taylor. We are heading out to hike the Long Trail, which runs through the the Green Mountains of Vermont. The trail starts just outside of North Adams, Massachusetts and ends at the Canadian border. It is approximately 273 miles long (give or take a few). The Long Trail is the oldest long distance hiking trail in the US and was first conceived in 1872 by James P. Taylor.

I started planning this trip a year ago when my son Tymber and I were hiking the trails around the Mad River Valley. My son Tymber is a special needs child who was born with a rare condition called Agenesis of the Corpus Callosum (ACC), which means he was born missing the part of his brain that connects one hemisphere to the other. As you can imagine, this has created many challenges for Tymber. He is small in stature, gets easily frustrated and perseverates often. He is also the sweetest, kindest person I know. His condition places him on the Autism spectrum and this is an easy way to describe some of the challenges he faces daily.

As he and I hiked last year, we started talking about how much fun it would be to hike the entire trail. When I mentioned the prospect of this to him, his eyes lit up—so, we started planning. When I told my other son, Taylor, that we were hiking the Long Trail in July, he enthusiastically replied, “I’m in!”

The trip was on—all I had to do was ask Don and Hapy for a month off to take on this adventure. I figured the best way to request something like was to add it to my weekly report to give them some time to grasp the idea and then perhaps in a day or two we could sit down and talk in more detail. I emailed my report on Friday as I often do and expected that Don and Hapy could think on this over the weekend.

I got a response from Don in a matter of minutes; it was a simple response that could not be mistaken: “YES!” Before I could even finish reading the email (as long as it was), Don was standing at my desk asking me to tell him more. He was as excited about the trip as I was. I really appreciated such a response—I have worked for Don and Hapy for 13 years and I am very grateful that they are willing to accommodate me while I go on an adventure with my boys.

We will post some pictures and notes to the Small Dog Facebook page and Flickr when we have 3G access so you can see where we are and how we are doing. It will be nice to make the full 273 miles, but honestly, the real goal is to spend some time with my sons and have an experience that will affect each of us for the rest of our lives.

Happy Fourth of July, make peace and I will see you in August!

I have included a few links if you’d like to learn more or explore:

What is ACC?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agenesis_of_the_corpus_callosum
http://umaine.edu/edhd/research/acc/what-is-agenesis-of-the-corpus-callosum-acc/

Read more about the Long Trail here:
https://www.greenmountainclub.org/

More about James P. Taylor:
http://www.vermonthistory.org/index.php/library/image-collections/james-p-taylor-photos.html

Small Dog’s Facebook Page:
http://www.facebook.com/smalldogelectronics

And a link to Geoff’s Camp for good measure:
http://www.forestlakecamp.com/