We drove up to Mass for the Thanksgiving holiday, and I can say this pretty easily — we won’t be doing that drive anytime soon. In fact, we probably won’t do that drive again if we can help it.
The good parts of the trip:
Myra. We brought the WonderPup up with us, and she was an angel. She amazes me by how wonderful she is, even when she doesn’t have any reason to be. More on the pup when I get to the puppy section.
My mom. She went out of her way to make sure I had gluten-free, dairy-free food and goodies. Putting together a thanksgiving dinner is a lot of work anyway, but then add in making things in duplicate and triplicate to accommodate food allergies, and it becomes an ordeal. But my mom never complained about having to make extra food, and it was so nice and appreciated to be able to eat what everyone else was eating. She even made GF DF versions of her pumpkin bread and apple pie that I love. It made it Thanksgiving.
Seeing She Hangs Brightly and Bryan and the pups. I miss her horribly and getting to spend a night just talking and watching the pups play was worth the trip.
The Bad parts of the trip:
The Drive. We left around 2 p.m. on Tuesday. Got to my parents house around 6:30 a.m. Wednesday. Didn’t stop, so I was awake for about 24 hours straight. We wanted to leave before Wednesday, thinking there would be worse traffic then. But we hit rush hour traffic in Richmond, Virginia, horrible backups in D.C. and along the Maryland beltway — apparently, they are doing road construction, and they have lanes closed, just because they are storing their equipment there. And then there was the George Washington Bridge. I was so stressed, thank Dog Tim was driving for that leg. Lots of tractor trailer trucks, cutting each other off, not noticing or seeing us, 16 lanes of traffic merging down to one. On a bridge. On a bridge that sways and groans. Terrifying.
The sleep, or lack of sleep. It’s hard to not sleep on your own bed, and there was construction outside my parents house that I heard all Wednesday when we were trying to sleep. And because we were sleeping in the basement and I am a very light sleeper, I heard my parents every time they got up to go to the bathroom or when they got up for the day, so I only slept in spurts.
When we drove back home, it still took about 15 hours, even though we only really hit traffic in Maryland, and we avoided the George Washington Bridge entirely. And being Gluten-free, dairy-free means it is really hard for me to eat safely while on the road. I ended up getting sick, possibly from cross-contamination at Thanksgiving. Using someone’s knife who had used butter could do it. It will take probably till Wednesday for my system to completely reset.
The puppy:
Myra is such an amazingly good dog. Not only does she handle long car rides exceptionally well, but she just always remains happy. She didn’t sleep well on the drive up, because of the stop and go traffic, but she didn’t whine or squeak, and she would listen when we would ask her to sit or lay down.
She has never been in anyone else’s house, but she adjusted to that quickly and easily. She did whatever was asked of her. She would watch my mom cook in the kitchen, but she wouldn’t beg for food, and she would never dream of trying to steal food.
She met more people in a house setting than she ever has, and even though she was overwhelmed at times, she still listened really well, and would settle down when we asked her to.
We took her to the beach down the street from my parents house. It was her first time ever seeing the ocean, first time ever seeing water bigger than a puddle. She was just about the cutest, happiest dog on the planet. There was no one on the beach, and we left her off her leash and she just ran and ran. She would get about 50 feet ahead of us, then turn to look for us and wait for us to catch up. When she finally discovered the water, she just charged in and was playing in the waves and romping around. We would throw rocks in the water for her, and she would get so confused because she couldn’t find what she was looking for.
When we took her up to meet Loki and Teygan (She Hangs Brightly’s dogs), she was so cute and flirty. She would keep rolling around on her belly for them, she would go up and give kisses or sit and paw at their faces to get them to play with her. She had lots of people to throw balls for her, and she was just thrilled about that. She is an amazingly happy dog, and I love her with my whole being and then more.
I think there were more good things than bad things, but man, the bad things were pretty rough. Actual thanksgiving was nice, but it isn’t worth the hassle to try and drive up again, and I don’t really want to fly on the busiest travel holiday. We shall see what happens next year, but I am guessing it will involve just me and Tim and MyraPup at our house, quiet and mellow.
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Flying Mermaid 