Another Road Trip!

Sometimes, if I’m paying close attention, the universe gives me a little warning that something is up. For example…

• The pop of the food bucket lid tells me dinner is coming soon and I need to get in position to devour it.
• The sound of dad’s desk chair rolling tells me that he’s about to get up and I need to hurry if I want to be in the way.
• The sound of mom walking across the bathroom at night tells me I need to get off the bed and into in my kennel to receive a bed-time treat.
• The click of the lamp timer downstairs in the morning tells me dad’s alarm will go off soon and I should groan and wake him up before that happens.

You get the idea.

Well, one of my favorite warnings happened recently — when dad’s suitcase appeared on the bed. That usually means we are all going someplace together, i.e., a road trip! If the appearance of the suitcase corresponds to the collapsing of our kennels, then we know for SURE that we get to go, and sure enough, that’s what happened.

Turns out, there’s an Irish festival up north where mom and dad and Raven used to live, and they decided to go back to it this year. So one morning we loaded up all of our our stuff into my truck (including critical things like food and toys and snacks for Raven and me, and boring things like clothes poop bags for mom and dad) and hit the road. Ok fine, the poop bags are mostly for Raven and me, but mom and dad carry them around so I say they belong to THEM.

We drove for a really long time. Day turned into night. Night turned into a vanilla flavored chew bone, and maybe into a bug, which turned into day again, and on and on. There may have been monkeys and the occasional cow too. I can’t really be sure because I napped a lot and chewed on various things that may or may not have included Raven’s foot and dad’s elbow. Eventually though (dad says after two hours) we stopped for lunch.

Mom went inside and dad and I invaded the restaurant patio and staked a claim at a table in the corner. I thought Raven and I would get to run around and visit the other people who were eating with us, but dad accidentally got our leashes stuck on the fence, severely cramping our style. We did get several taco bits as treats though, so it was fun.

After lunch we drove for another few months until we reached the land of endless cornfields. When dad told me this was where he brought me as a little puppy, I immediately remembered being here as a puppy! (I’m quick.) We were staying at the house where I stayed at during the day when dad was at work! Cool! I got to see my old friends and show them how much I’ve grown in the last seven or eight months.

The rest of the weekend was spent either running and playing and exploring outside, or guarding our kennels while everyone went to the festival without us. They wanted to take us, but it’s hard to find dog friendly stuff in small town Iowa. Now if I was a pig, there’s a whole state fair where you get to be a rock star. As a dog though, not so much. But at least they don’t eat us, so I guess that’s a win.

At one point, dad was outside on the deck, and I was exploring the house. I went into a room and… HEY! There was dad outside the window! Hi dad!

I also discovered some really big trees. Some of them have trunks that are so big you can hide behind them and totally freak dad out. Not that I would do that. Much.

There are several big back yards connected together without any fences, so I could run about 80 yards or more in a huge circuit around the trees and up and down hills. I learned as long as I didn’t head around the front of the house, dad only panicked a little bit.

He said I did really good being off leash though, so I was proud of my self-control.

When we drove back home we used bringfido.com to track down a cool brewery/restaurant in Des Moines that has an awesome dog-friendly patio, so we stopped there for lunch. That was fun. They even brought out a water bowl just for Raven and me! I only splashed a little of it on mom and dad’s feet.

There was a lot of shade out there, and lots of big plant displays.

So that’s my road trip story. I can’t wait to do it again!