Travel is one of my great loves.  I try to visit one or two new places every year.  A little over month ago as I was talking to my sister Lisa, she mentioned her annual business trip would be in Providence, RI in August.  Generally her husband goes with her on these trips, but this year he was saving up his vacation for hunting and a future trip to Disney World with us in December.  Lisa’s work would cover the cost of the Hotel and give her 60.00s a day for food.  This would cover most of the cost of the trip, so I decided to check and see if I could justify going with her this year.  I’ve spent a little time in New England back when we lived in Virgina Beach, VA some 17 years ago.  I would attend dog shows up and down the east coast, but I really didn’t have time to do much sight seeing or grasp the local culture.  I remember one flying trip up to Boston to rescue a Shiba Inu.  I drove from VA to MA, spent 3 hours evaluating the dog and visiting with his family to see his exact issues, then drove straight home.  No sleep, only stopping for food and potty breaks.  I was young and stupid. Now, I am a fair bit wiser and understand the value of stopping to smell the roses, well worth the cost of a hotel room.  Because my travels to NE have been limited, I decided to check with my mother to see if she could watch the kids.  She said nothing was planned for that week, and she would be eager to spend time with them.  Keith and I talked about his call schedule and if I would be taking all the dogs with me or just a few.  We concluded I should take Boris to Lisa and take Jazz for travel company.  I then checked the price of plane tickets to see if doing this was even remotely in the budget.  The cost was 500 round trip.  I had some ideas on how to make the cost bearable and booked my flight.  After holding a yard sale and place a few unused items up on facebook, I raised 400 dollars.  I would still have the cost of gas to AR to leave the kids with Mom and Jazz with my sister’s family, but pairing it with a visit with family would make that more than worthwhile. I needed to take Boris to Lisa’s sometime this fall in any case.  The longer he stayed with me the harder his transition to another home would be.  Taking Jazz was important so he would have a ‘friend’ he knew well to give him some reason to trust the new environment.  Jazz has stayed at Lisa’s home many many times in her short life.  She knows the drill.

With the cost decreased and the entire family on board with my travel plans, I headed to AR early the 18th of August.  Below is a slide show of my time in Providence, RI; Plymouth, MA; Cape Cod, MA; Newport, RI.  We packed in everything we could in the short hours between meetings.

It was a wonderful spare of the moment trip!  I found out I am a true southern girl.  I like my ocean warm and inviting, not freeze you to the bone cold!  Traffic was painful, but the country was stunning.

Now for some doggy news.  Boris is doing pretty good.  He was forced to deal with both Don and Chris, the two males in my sisters household.  He fell in love with Chris, but still thinks Don is scary.  However, he is doing great, better with Don than he did with Keith the entire time he was with me.  That is a great improvement.  He has shown a few more issues.   My sister’s yard is fenced with 4 foot chain link.  Boris has found this very easy to scale and has enjoyed cruising the neighborhood with a sweet black Lab.  Until a solution can be found, he will have to take his potty breaks on leash or supervised.  Thankfully he doesn’t leave the yard when someone is out there with him, at least at this point.  We had similar issues with Ruffian here, except she would jump my 6 foot privacy fence while I was standing outside watching!!  Lisa has some ideas, we will see how they pan out long term.  Boris might not be able to go outside alone again.  In any case, Lisa is dedicated to helping this boy.  She has found his cuddle bug nature to be so enduring, a little fence jumping is a non-issue.  The first night we arrived, Boris crawled up in her bed and fell sound asleep, draped across her chest.  Had I not been exhausted from my drive in, I would have gotten a photo of the silly Poo!  I don’t think it will be long before Boris has them all wrapped firmly in his paws.

Jazz has decided traveling without Flash and Mocha is the bomb!  She had such a great time with me and the kids staying at grandma’s house after I returned from my trip.  She is old enough now to sleep without a crate, so she and I had to have a talk about who gets to sleep on the bed at night and who has to sleep on the blanket in the corner of the room.  She wasn’t happen with my ruling but decided it was best to let Mom have her way if she hoped to take another trip ‘crate free’.  Jazz is great with dogs, so it wasn’t an issue to have her around my mom’s 2 Papillons and her new powder puff Chinese Crested puppy boy, Mickey.  I snapped a few photos of the new pup. His ears are tipped over due to teething.  They should stand back up in a month and if they don’t we don’t care.  He’s a neutered pet well on his way to being ultra spoiled!  Mickey is a real gem, let me tell you.  I want to snatch him up for myself!  Great drive, easy to train, so sweet!  He’s making me a Puff Crested fan, for sure.

We are now home.  I hope to take Jazz to a UKC show this weekend.  We will see how she does.  That means I have to get my rear in gear and groom her for real sometime this week.  My scissors are seriously dull, so this will be challenging to say the least.  Oh well, it is what it is.

~Becky