When school let out for summer last year, we thought it would be a nice idea to travel up to NY to spend some quality time with Dave’s parents in Buffalo, and then head east to do the same with my parents in Skaneateles. Dave decided to save money by driving to NY rather than paying for airline tickets. How bad could it be, right? Bad. It was an excellent reminder not to take car trips longer than 4 hours with kids.
Finding a place to board Kody, our Great Pyrenees, was proving to be a ridiculous task. Everywhere we looked cost the same rate it would cost a human to stay. When did all kennels turn into Waldorf Astoria’s? A good friend of ours recommended we contact a man about an hour north of our home to board Kody. He was right in our price range at $15/day. His kennel was “right off of the highway” we would be taking for 11 hours to get to Buffalo. We would just put the address into the mean lady, Garmin (she can be so condescending). Dave and I debated over whether to take Kody up the day before our departure, but decided to make a cozy place for him on the floor in the back of the Maxima instead. He could lay down at the kids’ feet for the brief hour drive. That went over as well as it would have gone had we put him in the trunk, I imagine.
The cozy place for Kody in the wheel well turned out to be the cozy place for Zach. I don’t think we even made it out of the county before Kody was up and climbing on the backseat with/on the boys. The boys started screaming and crying, “Ouch, Kody!” and “Mom, he scratched me with his nails!” While driving 70mph on the highway I made an executive decision to break the law for 40 minutes. I told Zach to unbuckle and crouch low on the floor of the car so no passersby would see him and call us in. Kody was now taking up 3/4 of the back seat and resting his big noggin on Ethan's lap. Zach was grinning from ear to ear, thrilled that he was free from the confines of his booster seat and seat belt. Ethan was crying “No fair! No fair!” because he got the shaft and had to keep his seat belt on and endure the wrath of Pyrenees breath. Two outta three ain’t bad.
Evil Garmin told us it was time to exit the highway. I hate that lady. I can always feel her looking down her electronic GPS nose at me. She had us driving on winding country roads into the middle of nowhere. I could hear the dueling banjos. “You have reached your destination.” Really, mean lady? We are in a field. Dave does not handle stress well. We still had another 10 hours of driving ahead of us and we hadn’t even dropped off the dog, or found where to drop off the dog. If Dave had it his way, Kody would stay in this random field to fend for himself with the hillbillies and if he was not here when we returned in a week, so be it. I called the kennel.
“Dagum, you ain’t nowhere near where ya’ll need to be at. I’ll come find ya’ll and lead ya’ll back to the farm.” Ten minutes later the mud coated dually pulled up next to us and a man said, “Hey Ya’ll, I’m Tracy. How’d ya’ll end up all the way over here?” Great question, Tracy.
We followed Tracy to his farm where Kody would check in and we would be on our way. As we pulled up, there was an elderly woman walking with a 40lb bag of dog food from the kennel to the little shack which acted as the office. “That's my mamma, Ms. Beverly.” Ms. Beverly was at the least, in her eighties, but she must have been eating her Wheaties for decades. Tracy and Ms. Beverly were the owners of the kennel, as well as obedience and retriever trainers. The whole set up was pretty cool. Kody’s kennel overlooked a pond and field that went on forever. He actually seemed to like his temporary housing.
Kody was settled in his space, so it was time to settle the boys in theirs. Zach wanted to make the whole trip in the wheel well and we told him that was not an option. Ethan wanted a turn in the wheel well. Also not an option. Dave set up their DVD, gave them each their own set of headphones, and hit play. I saved the coordinates of the farm in Ms. Meany Garmin. I wanted to make sure we would be able to pick up my furry baby on our way back without fear of our own personal Deliverance experience. If we ever take a road trip for that long again (which we NEVER will) Kody will already be settled into his doggy suite long before our departure.
No comments:
Post a Comment