Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.
We are back in Texas again. We cut our vacation short a few days. Since we had most of the family at our house here in October, the trip back was not as needed as trips in the past. Also, we were missing the Texas weather incredibly.
On the way up to Kokomo, we stayed at a Ramada Inn in Joplin, MO. Joplin is about 1/3 of the way there (if you are coming from Texas) and (of course) 2/3 of the way home. Splitting the 15 hour drive up into two days seemed like a great idea especially given the wildcard of having a puppy with us on the trip (the cat came too). The only bad thing about travelling with the dog was that her "breaks" did not happen at the same schedule as ours. Furthermore, she tended not to want to take care of business near heavy traffic (like say at a gas station). As a result of this we made several other stops along the side of the road. Our typical stop went something like this...
- The dog indicates to my wife that a stop needs to be made (this is done via some sort of Vulcan mind meld as there were not many outward signs that I could see).
- I find the next exit and then pull over to a grassy area.
- The wife exits the car with the dog and they proceed to walk around a grassy area and do everything but what we stopped for originally.
- The kids and I watch from the car and try to offer moral support. This is done mostly but us chanting loudly, "Squat! Squat! Squat!" Sometimes we even did a cheer, "Give me a S. Give me a Q!" etc.
- Sometime later, squattage occurs and we are back on our way.
The other problem with our 4 legged travelling companions is that the cat is not a big fan of the dog (this I know shocks you). The cat spent most of the trip sitting on top of the luggage in the back of the van and looking out the back window. From there, he was safe from the dog since she spent most the trip on the wife's lap or at her feet. On the few occasions we had to leave them in the car together, madness ensued. Though these stops were short (often only 10 minutes), the situation we returned to would take us hours to replicate. The cat was invariably on the dash peering out toward us. He was keeping watch for his rescuers it would seem. The dog would be trapped somewhere in the middle or back of the van trapped or stuck or hung up in some way. The cat would have a smug look of satisfaction of a job well done (but this is his usual look anyway so it is hard to tell if he was experiencing any satisfaction). The van was pretty packed on the way up and even more so on the way home (as the kids got some Christmas presents while we were up there) so the predicaments that the dog found herself in were increasinbly complicated on the way home compared to the way there. At any rate, we arrived home yesterday afternoon. After unpacking, cleaning out the van and then getting a very late lunch, we headed to the grocery stores to restock the fridge / pantry.
We are all very thankful to be home and in a heat of frustration I made a promise that I was "never driving to Indiana again." Time will tell if I fulfill my promise or not. All I know is that we drove the car around last night and that is the only vehicle I am getting in for a while.
Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.
Jon
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