The Trip

I'd have to say that we had a pretty perfect trip this week - the worst thing that happened was the moving truck sprung a "light" leak - one of the top corner reflectors popped out of its socket and dangled for most of the trip.

The dogs slept a remarkable 1100 miles - maybe making up for some sleep lost while stressing during the final packing. This was in marked contrast to good ol' Network, who would sleep a while and then stand up and bark for a long while before settling down for another nap. That was my fault - I taught him how to bark at a field of horses driving across Oregon when he was 6 months old. Well, the field of horses wasn't driving across Oregon. You know what I mean.

Please forgive the quality of these cell phone pictures - they serve simply to capture the sleeping forms of the hounds, who at times were curled up quite comfortably. Not so much at others.

The biggest adventure for all of us would have to have been the elevators at the hotel, glass elevators no less. I have never had these 2 dogs on an elevator and I thought for sure that Miss Star was going to freak out. I asked if we could use the stairs but the very unhelpful youngster at the front desk said that they were fire stairs only and had to remain locked in case there was a fire, so therefore we couldn't use them. Huh??? Unclear on the concept?

Turns out the dogs were just fine. Maybe a little unsure when the ground started to move, but they hung in there like champs and rode up the first night and down the next morning and didn't complain at all. I remembered my elevator lessons from service dog training - keep your body blocking the door until they are all the way in or out. Bad things can happen if you are holding the leash and the door closes with you and your dog on opposite sides of the door when the box starts moving. Enough said.

Another exciting hotel moment - Miss Star decided (all on her own, I swear) to attempt to vault over a 4 foot wall separating the 2 beds. If I am in any way responsible, it is only that the night before at our last visit with friends, I had her routinely jumping up onto a 4+ foot retaining wall, which she did very smoothly. She surprised the heck out of me when she came flying over that wall in the hotel room. She wasn't quite as smooth as the night before, however, and got hung up on the top and had to scramble over. I imagine she didn't think ahead to what was on top or on the other side. However, it did cement my interest in finding an Agility class for her. And I was very fortunate to spend our 4th day in town at a local Agility trial, where a good friend was competing. I got to help out at the event as a leash runner (100+ squats over a 4 hour period - I'm feeling it today!) and met some locals who can help me when we get ready to try it out. But first we have to go through their 2 basic obedience classes - will look into starting that in June.

There were also a couple exciting highway moments for the drivers. First, we had to pass this "mobile home" that was roaring down the freeway at Montana highway speeds on windy mountain roads. (That's not windy, but windy. Are they the same word? In this case, there was no wind, so it was the other one - winding mountain roads, maybe that's what I meant to say.)

And then I made my truck driving big Sis, another experienced off-roader, take the truck up a slightly washboarded dirt road to visit my Montana friends and let the dogs have a romp on 20 acres before we started our last 200 miles. She was worried that her truck packing job wasn't up to the challenge, since I didn't have enough stuff for it to be jam-packed full, but alas, no damage occurred.

Shortly thereafter, we arrived at our destination, and the dogs woke up in time to enjoy the beautiful sunset. I am happy to have my expansive western views back again.