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| Final night at Lake Mead |
Some of you might have been wondering by now if we took a
wrong turn at Albuquerque (now how many dogs do you know who can spell
Albuquerque
correctly – twice?). But we didn’t, didn’t even go through that way this year.
It was straight up the I15 home, the most direct route. There’d been a lot of
talk about slowly travelling through California and Oregon as we made our way
north, visiting a place called
Cannon Beach where T wanted to take us for a
walk, but in the end we stayed at Lake Mead just as long as we could and drove
home through Utah, Idaho and Montana.
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Heading for dinner at the Red Iguana
(looking very happy even though I couldn't go with them) |
We left Lake Mead just after sunrise on a Sunday morning,
stopped for lunch at a rest area near the entrance to
Zion National Park,
and then continued on to
Salt Lake City where T and Nollind had a dinner date.
They’d been talking about it for days, The
Red Iguana, and I was so hoping it
was one of those places that allowed dogs. But, no such luck, and apparently the
food was so good they ate all of it, didn’t even bring me a taster. We
continued north after dinner, crossing into Idaho and parking in another rest
area, this one near
Malad City. It was chilly when we hopped out of the truck,
and chillier the next morning when we went for a short walk. It wasn’t the kind
of chilly we experienced in January in Montana, but to this desert dog it felt
mighty cold (I think I might be developing an
American accent).
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| Just two cars to wait for at the border |
As usual, I slept most of the journey so can’t tell you a
lot about it, but I know the weather was fine and the roads were dry every time
I sat up and looked out the window, and there wasn’t a speck of snow other than
high in the mountains. We got to
Great Falls, Montana by mid-afternoon Monday
and, once we were parked at
Dick’s, T and Nollind headed off to do some
shopping. They always pick up a few things from
Western Ranch Supply and Big R
(now
North 40 Outfitters), usually things for the horses or the farm. Even with
the low dollar (I do pay attention to the news) they can still save money on
things like electric fencing, dewormer and buckets.
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| Looking for ducks in the wetland |
Looking at the weather forecast that night, there was talk
of delaying the trip home for a day or two because of the high winds but,
instead, we were up and driving by 5:30 to stay ahead of it. And we did…just. There
was nobody lined up at the border so we were in
Lethbridge by 9:00 and things
were still calm when we got out to stretch our legs. Less than an hour up the
road, we could feel the west wind pushing on the side of the rig, and by the
time we rolled into the farm around 12:30, it was blowing around 30-40 km/hour.
Within an hour, it was somewhere in the 50-70 range with a few gusts hitting up
to 90 so they were all three glad to be parked, especially Logan who was
remembering the tipping warnings from last year’s drive through Wyoming.
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| I think I can smell home |
And me, was I glad to be home? I was, and still am, but I
also miss the road. T and Nollind are so busy here and there’s so much
competition for their time and attention. That’s one part of being human I can
live without -- no time for naps. The horses always take a bunch of their time
but, even after a winter of being sprayed with insecticides, they still have
cooties so are more demanding than ever since we’ve been home. We’ve been on a few walks and they took me to
Strathmore one day to the
vet (I love going to
see Julie and she told me the bump on my head is nothing to worry about) but other than that we’ve been left mostly to our own devices. I’ve
spent a lot of time hunting gophers, but this morning Logan and I ran off into
the fields for an hour or so and had the greatest of times. I’m not sure T was
as pleased as we were, and now Logan can hardly walk with that bad elbow of his,
so I feel kind of bad.
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| Walking the back twenty |
T and Nollind proclaimed today “Sid Day” (Sid is the name of
our fifth wheel for those who’ve forgotten). Sid Day is apparently when they set
aside the farm chores, the Calgary renovation project, the year end, the
horse sale tasks, and the cootie problem and just hang out with us, watch
some TV,
take a nap, putter around the house and, yay, help me with my blog. These Sid
Days could easily become my favourite days of the month...or week (not sure how
often they’ll come around but I’m hoping).
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| Aaaahhhhh..... |
Logan and I plan to keep up the blog writing here at home
since life is a grand adventure wherever we are. In fact, I hear we might be heading
west with the horse trailer soon, delivering Calypso to her new home. Sounds
like a great road trip to me! And of course I’ll keep you apprised of my quest
for humanness although, today, being a dog is feeling mighty fine.
