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If you haven’t traveled with my buddy before, it is nothing short of a surprise every day. When we began driving in mid-April, she casually mentioned that we were going on an adventure. She wasn’t joking… This has been a change in the daily grind of a long North Dakota winter, and she most definitely is on a journey!
We start every morning with a team selfie and a convoy briefing about all our daily stops and activities. She truly just yaps away incessantly, and I get that little smirk on my face that lets her know that I am hanging on to her every word. That is so far away from the truth. I am secretly thinking: “just hand over the treat and let me nap the day away”! As much as I would like for you to believe that the days are relaxing, I got hooked up with someone who is a bad sleeper, eats at random times at night and wakes up to write notes and thoughts. There is no rest for the weary!
But I have not a single complaint. Mostly I am amazed at what we can see and hear if we just stop
to listen or if we look to remember. Driving across this crazy world has been worth every moment of being unsure of what is around each corner. She has made me confident in stepping outside and not freaking out every time the view changes. We stay at a different location nightly and although never in a shady scary place, she makes me believe that we are on secret missions. The funnest night was when we were on a military post, and it was really dark, and we couldn’t find the RV park that was by the lake. Okay, we never even found the lake! Instead of giving up we had a slumber party with the lights out. She told me not to bark and to be very very quiet. We drove into this parking lot with a few RV’s for sale (she even turned the driving lights off so we could sneak up on the parking spot) and parked and tried desperately to fit it with the other quiet and empty rigs. She made a 4-sale sign, put it in the front window and we slept on the floor in the new dog bed for humans. It was awesome!
As her assistant driver I am responsible for keeping an eye on the weather and providing random guidance. The storms have been often and that has kept us driving at nights and strange times to ensure we don’t get caught in the worst of the weather. We even stopped early in Suffolk, VA one day because the Navy Base near Norfolk looked like a really bad storm coming for that day. Only 18 miles up the road they had an EF3 tornado. She listens to me when I bark sternly and give her the stink eye with one blue eye and one brown eye! If you can only imagine what a 40-mph wind gust feels like in an RV. It totally freaks me out when the jolt of the wind makes it feel like a carnival ride inside the rig and things fall off the counter and crash.
Parking lots and uneven roads are another challenge. I know that when you drive super slowly, and the left front of the vehicle goes into a pothole and the rear is twisted a different way and then the back six wheels start going through the potholes too and all of a
sudden it is a twisted bouncy uncontrollable rocking of the motorhome. All this action is in slow motion, and I can get seasick while trying to hang on desperately with my paws that have no thumbs. Ugh.
Last week we started driving through the inner population centers as everything shifted from rural towns to big cities. Tall buildings, traffic, and cross walks with so many people walking in front of our rig, I am on constant alert. With condensed spaces and more people, we noticed the increase in homelessness and the real struggles of poorness and challenges of mental health. We talked about how many Veterans live on the streets of America. Frenchy has known service members who have returned from war who have struggled to find a balance between PTSD and the realities of the challenges of everyday life. The VA has initiated a new focus:
No Veteran should be without a place to call home. Through collaborating with federal, state, and local agencies; employers; housing providers, faith-based and community nonprofits; are working towards affordable housing options for Veterans. She also explained to me that there are also surviving family members of our nation’s fallen heroes that are
struggling also. Even with the toughest unimaginable conditions, TAPS is there to work with and assist their families.
Lately, my favorite moments have been when we get stopped at a red light and there is a person on the corner, with a homeless sign. She gives them a package out the window. I get the chance to bark, and she always says, “Red Vines Licorice and a Smile can make anybody have a better day.”
There are many things to growl at and the smells are tail wagging good! Speaking of smells…
A couple of days ago we were driving very slowly in traffic when we both got a smell of something pretty nasty. The whiff continued to linger, and I was enjoying the moment more than my sidekick! Frenchy started to talk and moan about maybe our tanks are too full. Did the RV sewer tank start leaking? Is it just draining behind us? The worst of the potential scenarios were being played out as we inched along in traffic. She was completely sweating the small stuff and I couldn’t have been happier. For more than 20 minutes the traffic continued to crawl, and she was
literally getting crabbier as the stink became very repugnant and almost eye watering.
If I could have talked, I would have pointed and mentioned that; up ahead about 10 vehicles was a tanker looking truck with a funny caricature on the side of the rounded tank. A funny looking dusty old man with a baby bonnet, holding a plunger and the words: “TURDS RUS”!
Have A Great Tail Wagging Day!
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