Wayne had meetings scheduled during the last week of April in Dallas, and mom and dad needed some maintenance done on their Foretravel at the repair center in East Texas. It was a perfect opportunity to take a family road trip in the motorhome.
As always, Zuzu and Tootie were eager to go for a ride in the motorhome. We headed out of suburban St. Louis on a dreary, cloudy Saturday afternoon (springtime in St. Louis is rarely consistent or predictable) making our first stop in this shared rest area of both east and westbound traffic.
Zuzu and Tootie weren't impressed with this first stop. Hoping, I suppose, for a plethora of squirrels, rabbits, and enticing scents, they instead discovered amid the constant drone of traffic on the highway, a small strip of soppy, muddy turf and the absence of any wildlife.
Tootie's expression captures perfectly her opinion of this Missouri rest area. "You've got to be kidding! Can we go now?" Yes, Tootie, you can get back in the motorhome and return to the warm, soft bed.
The trip was rather uneventful (always a good thing when traveling in a motorhome), and after spending the night in a Wal-Mart parking lot in Wagoner, Oklahoma, we arrived at our destination in Grapevine, Texas. Shortly after settling into the campsite, some afternoon thunderstorms started to roll in. This was a new experience for our thunder-phobic vizslas. Not many places to hide in a motorhome during a thunderstorm. You know when the storm is very close when Zuzu begins yawning and then panting. She paces nervously, looking for any confined spot to crawl into.
This time, though, she behaved more like a cat climbing on the sofa and walking along its back until finding a wide spot to lay across. The thunder was quite a distance away, but still close enough to make her a little nervous. Thankfully, her nails had just been trimmed and she is very gentle when climbing on furniture.
Climbing on the back edge of mom and dad's sofa in the motorhome was bad enough, but when Tootie found mom's favorite leather chair to be a nice spot to curl up and take a nap, we lost complete control in our traveling vizslas. "It's a good thing mom's not here to see this!" we uttered again and again. But, having spent the first four years of their life in a confined, inhospitable space in a puppy mill, we tend to give Zuzu and Tootie a lot of latitude. Life is not only good, it's better when resting on a warm, soft, cushiony surface.
We also hoped, if mom and dad were here to see their behavior, that they, too, would find it difficult to say no to Zuzu and Tootie staring up at you with their adorable brown eyes.
Once we returned to St. Louis at the end of the week, it was time to pack the rental truck and head back to Sugarloaf Key. We made the trip in tandem, Zuzu and Tootie riding comfortably in the car with me while Wayne bounced and vibrated annoyingly down the highway in front of us in the pathetic rental truck. I insisted that we break the 24 hour trip into three days of driving, which meant two nights in a motel. Our first night was in a fleabag motel in north Georgia. No frills for $60, but it was pet friendly.
The second night we splurged and paid $70 for a spacious room at the La Quinta in Ft. Pierce. "Wow, what did this cost?" Wayne exclaimed as we entered the room. When he learned that is was only ten dollars more then the room at the discount chain motel, he became a La Quinta fan. It's safe to say that our vizslas became fans, too!
I dubbed them the "La Quinta Queens" as they curled up on the comfortable queen bed wrapped in the down-filled comforter. They didn't move all night leaving me with just a strip of bed with no covers. Once again, we found ourselves saying, "just like the puppy mill" as we listened to Tootie snoring into the night.
Oh happy morning! Zuzu and Tootie had a very restful night after their 8 hour drive. I, on the other hand, was grumbling while searching for coffee.
The drive from Ft. Pierce to Florida City can be stressful and frenetic with traffic building as you pass through the suburban cities of Broward and Miami-Dade counties. But the stress and tension of the turnpike fades away once you reach the top of the Keys and make the descent down the Overseas Highway towards Key West. Connecting each little island village are bridges across turquoise-blue waters offering sweeping vistas of the Gulf waters to the north dotted with mangrove islands and the open waters of the Atlantic to the south.
Mile marker 17 and the yellow blinking light. Home. And welcoming us home was a fantastic arrangement of fruit, flowers, and beverages thoughtfully placed by our great friends Michael and Layne. They kept an eye on our house, tended our pitiful garden in our earth boxes, and even mowed the lawn just before our arrival. Thank you both!
Just as Zuzu and Tootie hopped on the bed, and Wayne sat down to relax, I was eager to peek in the truck to see how well the cargo survived the trek. This, of course, led to unpacking the truck and moving furniture up and down the stairs. It was a lot of work but, in four days we would have most everything in its place and we would find ourselves relaxing on a beach at Snipe Point with Michael, Layne, and Cheyenne.
Stay tuned.
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