The Clara

Across America

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katrin@maplewooddog.com 

In August 2007 we began our trek in usual Clara Across America style, with a semi-formulated plan, and lots of ideas (and me sick, ehy what a concept!, UGH!!!  Poor Li had to do 98% of the driving, though I DID do the WV mountains as promised).

I had decided that this was going to be a 'real' vacation (that was till I started puking my guts up) and no highways we hated (and we have a number on that list including the dreaded PA turnpike <BOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!>, the nasty NJ Turnpike and Garden State Parkway <More BOOOOOOOO!!!>, Washington D.C. traffic <UGH!!!!!!!!!> etc etc etc.)  So we needed to make it down to Orange, VA in decent time to visit our friend Dina Delsman, who has 3 Cardigans and Sam the 1st Cardi I fell in love with, while having an enjoyable ride.  Well when Holly (my corgi breeder and friend) heard we were going to Virginia, she arranged for us to transport 10month old Ian (cardigan) down with us to Dina for Karen a breeder friend of theirs.  We also planned to visit Maribeth and the Pittsburgh Crew and stop back in Albany, NY on the way home to go to a corgi picnic (where the flat coats caused mass chaos as usual! Fence?, water?, fence?, water?, hmmmm, WATER!!!!!!!!!!! kill the fence or rather just jump over it!!!  not something the corgis needed to learn!)

So here is our rather round about route (kinda like when we went to St Louis by way of Niagara Falls LOL)

Start Saturday July 28, from Foxboro, MA.  Drive to near exit 9 in NY of Rt I-90 to pick up Ian.  Met Lori, where she very nicely treated us to a Cracker Barrel Gift Certificate for lunch, which we saved for later in the drive when we were going to be starving.  (remember here, I am sick as a dog, have been for over a week, and poor Lisa, is driving, driving, driving).  That day we drove Rt 90 down to 87 across to 84 into PA to 81 and followed that to Harrisburgh, PA where we spent the night in one of Li's FAVORITE places!  The 'soft squishy bed hotel!  A Red Roof Inn!  (not knocking them at all as they ALLOW DOGS!!!!!!  YEAH Red Roof!!!!!!!!!)  Li just can't sleep in them without drugs, hehe.  Me I can never sleep without drugs so we're all good, just the dogs sleep a LOT on vacation, the humans just go kind of crazy, very fun by day 4 or 5 HAHA!!!!

Getting ready to leave in the Trusty Truck! (which nearly broke down! eeek!!!)  (oh yeah there ARE 2 Flat-Coats in the back of the truck, it wasn't just an ALL Corgi trip!  CAA ALWAYS includes Flat Coats!!!)

Bon Voyage- Kay Andberg style!  (Bye Mom!!!  See you in a week.  We think?!)

Sunday July 29, 2007 we began driving, or rather I should say Li began driving and I began to curl up and sleep with sunglasses and hat on feeling rather ill.  After my breakfast of rice and frosting- gotta keep that glucose up to prevent a headache! (and NO I'm NOT pre diabetic for those that care!).  Again- Poor Li (she says over my shoulder as I type....) has to drive by herself with only the Corgi's to talk to, Poor Li, Never gets outta the house, Katrin never takes her anywhere or does anything with her blah blah blah (it gets very old ehy??????).  Well good thing we all love her!

A CAA MILESTONE!!!- 11:50AM we drive Across the Mason- Dixon Line!!!!!  For those that don't know, like me, it's where they separated the North vs the South during the Civil War.

Then disaster strikes.  Katrin groggily wakes up and in her typical Katrin-eeze (ie- mumble) says to Lisa "If there's traffic follow Wilma (the GPS) if there's NOT follow Rt 81 to Rt 64 then up to Orange (we were in VA by now and technically only a few hours from Dina's).  Well because of the mumble, Li just heard "follow Wilma".  So therefore Wilma, nice gal that she is, added a lovely scenic tour of rural Virginia and 2 freaking HOURS to our drive!  Again here we go- all together- "Poor Li".  But god is there money out there, OLD money, horse money.  4 panel fencing, hounds, it was amazing, we were both drooling excessively like Pavlov's Dogs for sure.  We got to Dina's around 4pm.  "Hi Dina!!!"  And spent the next 3 days working out of Dina's lovely home as our 'base camp' and touring around beautiful VA.  It is as nice as Li promised me!  Yeah!!  (see, she's always right!)

Monday July 30 thru Wednesday August 1, 2007- Virginia and 10 miles of North Carolina!  Monday we visited Monticello (Katrin felt so bad she didn't even know where she was, Monticello, Montpellier, eyh it's all the same to her, non-history buff that she is, sorry folks!  You're lucky I know it was Jefferson and that it was there at all!).  Even though we had been promised (hmmm, DINA!) we could walk the dogs there, we got there and it was "no, sorry, NO DOGS ALLOWED"  (see sign photo below, we just HAD to pass the sign, now watch we'll get a ticket from some cop reading this web site, jeeze, give us a break folks, we're just two nuts having a good time, plus it's ALL LISA'S FAULT!!!!!!!!!  am I ANYWHERE to be seen in this photo????  Noooooooooooooo.  I was puking in the woods, that's my story and I'm sticking to it!  Then again that's probably illegal at Monticello too.)

But just to prove that we were really at MONTICELLO here is a Jefferson sign:

Tuesday was another driving day.  I had picked up a bit at that point, and had a herding lesson scheduled with the ever famous Debbie & Roy Johnson with Monty and Clara had one too.  Roy and his border collie Sonny were the #1 US and Canadian herding team for 2006!  And Debbie was like #14  with another one of their dogs.  An amazing feat for both of them!  I know them from Camp Gone to the Dogs, and couldn't wait to see their farm and get a lesson, now that I had a corgi (and not a flat coat that 'pretends' to herd, ie "GET THE SHEEP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"  (James if you hadn't guessed))  So we left Dina's at 7am, bloody 7am (guess who drove and who slept?  Li drove, I slept, Wilma navigated as usual, perfect, well for me at least)  2hrs later nearly on the dot, we were at the ranch.  Debbie met us at the gate, with friendly southern hospitality as always has at camp, she is such a doll, and Roy came up from a field on his golf cart with one of the dogs (they're all black and white border collies, I'm sorry, I don't even bother trying to keep them straight anymore). 

So Monty went in the pen 1st.  It was the biggest pen he's ever been in and he just turned on, it was AWESOME!  Bad thing is, 10 min into it he tore his back pad and was gimping.  He still wanted to herd, but I had to call him off and quit.  Then I took Clara in.  The little shit.  She rounded up the sheep, so now I had 3 sheep at my feet.  Then she, in her little ever logical brain said, "well my work is done, Katrin has the sheep, what else is there for me do to, I'm leaving."  So she went, got a drink and found Lisa.  Smart dog, I guess.  Not the best HERDING dog, but smart none the less.  So the sheep scattered again, I called Clara, she rounded them up again, and did the same exact thing.  Got me the sheep, said "I'm done." and went and found Li.  Don't see a Championship Herder in her future, but she gave it a shot and it made sense to her, which in Clara Land is all that matters.

(unfortunately no herding in VA photos, bad Lisa :-(((((, she says "maybe we just can't find them.")

Next, seeing how I was feeling good enough to herd with TWO dogs, Lisa MADE me DRIVE!!!  EVIL WOMAN!!!!  Ugh!  Her sick friend!  Naw, it was ok.  I think maybe I even offered at that point??  Don't know, kinda fuzzy.  Hmm wonder why.  No really, I didn't get run over by a sheep and hit my head, really.  I would fess up, I promise, Dr R and Dr McG.

Well anyway.  We were off to North Carolina and another MILESTONE IN CAA!!!  STATE TWENTY-SIX!!!!!!!!!!  We were soon to be over 1/2 way to our goal of 49 states plus D.C. (no Hawaii, too many quarantine rules).

So about 1.5hrs later we were in NC.  26 states.  We DID IT!!!!!!!!!!  YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  (we had passed through a tiny bit of WV on the way down, getting state 24, VA was 25 and now NC is 26!).  Well I said "Damit, I am not driving all the way down to freaking NC without getting lunch, I'm hungry and REFUSE to just "cross the border" for a dog!"  Luckily Wilma has a "food" finder button.  Lisa, being in the navigator seat, but not so familiar with Wilma "found" a place to eat.  We turned around on Rt 29 and started back the way we came.  Now we had gotten about 15 miles into NC, passed a few exits so I figured this lunch place was off one of these exits, well NO!  It was in bloody DANVILLE, VIRGINIA!!!!!!!!!!  I REFUSE to EAT in VIRGINIA!!!!!!!  The nearest NC food was another 30 miles away!  Shit!

Here comes the funniest part.  I take the nearest exit, as when we entered NC there was a 'rest area and welcome center'.  But not like in any other state we'd ever been in.  It was actually off an EXIT.  Not it's OWN exit.  So we missed it.  Lisa wanted to stop on the way back.  So I pulled off the exit I thought it was at.  No, we hit the END of the highway in North Carolina (similar to what we did in Idaho).  Why we go to these no mans land places I will never know.  So here is the photo of the 'End of the Road" in North Carolina.  Pretty Sad ehy?

Well we did find the 'Rest Area" and it actually had some lovely photo ops.  Here they are (oh yeah and Monty being a "Cool dude" in the truck, he says it's "His truck now!  Especially that he's won Clara's heart and he's got THE girl"  Poor Niche)

"Cool Man Mont"

Finally a photo of KATRIN & Clara (not Lisa)

Can you tell the dog's getting a tad bit tired?  Been a long few days hanging out in the truck.  Oh yeah........

Oh so back to lunch.  At the "End of the Highway" Lisa took back over driving, yeah!!, and I looked at a map.  There is actually both a South Boston, VA and a Halifax, VA.  Lisa grew up in Halifax, MA and of course we've all been to Southie in Boston (I should hope.........come on folks!!!).  And there just happened to be an Applebees (1st one we'd seen) on Halifax Rd in South Boston, VA.  But NO we did NOT eat there!  I forced Lisa to stick to her convictions of "NO chain restaurants on our adventures, small local places only."  So therefore what we ended up doing was going to "Bojangles" which of course makes only FRIED chicken which I CAN'T EAT, as I'm still SICK!!!  And my BEST friend (or so she says) refuses to stop at the only DELI we pass for hours and hours so I can get a sandwich!!!!  So I get to eat NOTHING!  And she gets FRIED CHICKEN!  (which she says, to make me feel better, 'was gross', hmmm don't believe it!)
 

As you can guess this Tuesday we were LAUGHING hysterically the near entire way home from North Carolina.  I mean it was so bad I think I had the hiccups 3 times, maybe more, and Lisa started crying so bad she had to pull over into this Baptist Church:

We would like to thank Millstone Baptist Church for being there when we needed a pull over spot so the locals driving behind us at 35MPH wouldn't kill us.  We figured a church was the safest place to be.  Thank you Pastor Chester!  We can't tell you how much we appreciate it! :-)

(We have decided that VA is much like Seattle, WA.  There is a Baptist Church on every corner.  You figure out the Seattle reference....e-mail me if you have a guess :-))

Now on to Wednesday and our last day in the lovely countryside of Virginia.  As some of you know I run Maplewood Assistance Partners, Inc.  A school that trains Service/Assistance Dogs for the disabled.  I also use a service dog myself, my rescue Flat-Coat James, who is 5, for high functioning autism.  (who says an autistic can't have a life!?  look at all the places I've been with my service dog AND service human!  Lisa demands a service vest now!!! <well actually she wants a shirt, pushy girl!>  Thanks Li!!!!!)  Dina, knowing this, had asked me previously, if we could stop in at her work and meet someone she worked with and her little 5yr old daughter who is developmentally delayed.  I said sure, but if you want a kid friendly dog, Monty is your man, he loves them.  But he's not TDI or a SD or anything, so Dina said don't worry about it.  So around 10am on Wed, Lisa, James, Monty and I went to Dina's work to meet Paige and her mom as well as some of Dina's coworkers.  The dogs were stars.  I had brought one of Monty's favorite retrieving toy's a soft fuzzy dog and some kid friendly snacks (easy to hold) that he enjoyed as well.

We were all waiting in the kitchen when Paige came in.  She saw the dogs and was all smiles.  I said "hello" and told her who I was and asked if she wanted to meet the dogs.  She is 'non verbal' meaning she speaks very little and has a hard time verbalizing what she does want to say even though she may 'know' the words, so I knew getting her to vocalize may be a challenge.  Monty helped tremendously and Paige did AWESOME!  By the end of the hour she was playing fetch with Monty (a behavior chain of 'sit' <she learned the word AND hand signal>, throw the toy, 'get it', 'Monty" while clapping hands to get him to come, 'stay' and then do it again.)  She was thrilled with this game.  She learned how to properly pet him.  Gave terrific eye contact to me.  Remembered things I told her.  Learned about 10 words in the hour including Katrin, Monty, James, Sit, Stay, Come, Give, some parts of his body (ears, nose, tail).  She also learned how to get James to bark on hand signal, which I was very happy with as Paige is noise sensitive and I thought him barking would scare her too much.  But once she learned that she was in control of the barking, she had a blast.  Oh yeah, she also learned how to properly give treats to both dogs and that getting slimed a bit was ok.  We almost got her to teach James to spin in a circle but he was a bit big for her and I was getting tired as was she.  I really hope Paige's family gets the support they need to get her a working dog of her own.  I told Dina, if they want I'll take them into my program in a heartbeat, that kid is so Smart!  And has such potential!  I really hope she can make all the progress she can in the world and get to reach as much potential as I know she has in her!

Then started Katrin's health week from hell, and migraine #1.  Luckily I had my Relpax which took care of it (after a panicked look in my bag, finding an empty box, but thank god for Lisa and CVS and one of us has a brain ie HER!  Me, I was just in pain and ready to cry).  Oh wait, I'd already been in health week from hell, so I should amend that, Migraine Health Week from hell!!!  And then we were off to Walton's Mountain in Schuyler, VA (YES it really DOES exist!  Scary, huh?)

(Kind of scary, we really DID think the Schuyler Public School was in the same building as the Museum.  We're like what's their town population 230???  Thankfully we were wrong!  There is a separate Schuyler Elementary School in another part of town)

Ok as this was Lisa DREAM of the ENTIRE vacation she is going to dictate (because I type faster).  Heeeeeree's Lisa:

Those of us who are older (ie not Katrin) than 30, know the Waltons quite intimately, the TV show I mean.  Not your next door neighbor.  The show was based on the life of it's creator (which I learned at the museum) Earl Hamner and we got to see components of the old set.  I got to see a 30min video about the show and it's makings (and Niche <who was playing Service Dog for a Day> FOUND me with his nose!  yeah Niche!  Since Katrin had a MIGRAINE and didn't want to watch the video, smart Katrin, wonderful Niche, funny story, ask Katrin to tell you some day).  Seeing how I have been bugging about going to Walton's Mountain for YEARS, Katrin thought it would be funny (and it is!) if I could take a piece  home with me.  So she bought me a $4 rock.  Yes a $4 teeny tiny rock of the foundation of the original Hamner home.  Not exactly the Mountain, but as close as she could legally get.  Thanks Katrin! :-) 

Oh yeah we forgot to mention the SHEEP!  Yes the sheep.  That were hanging out UNDER the porch of the 'General Store".  As we went to leave, we look out the truck window (we only had Niche with us other wise we would have done them a favor and herded them away hehe, poor Monty, missed opportunity) and there were these 3 sheep!  We both looked at each other like, "are they supposed to be there?  Isn't that kinda dangerous?"  So I went into the store and the guy behind the counter was like "Oh well, here we go again, they get out all the time, gotta go chase 'em back over the other side o' the road"  And that's exactly how he talked!

Now since we ALL know Katrin is NOT a morning person.  And we were leaving Thursday morning, but not till around 10am and Dina gets up at like 6am, Lisa got to be photographer for a day and wake up with Dina to get this shot of our friend!  See Dina, now you're famous!  You've made it to Clara Across America!!!  Whoo Eeeee!!!

Here we have Ginny aka Ginger the Queen Bee (running), then the Lovely Dina, Sam the Barking Man and Miss Moira.

Thanks a million Dina!!!!  Couldn't have had such a great trip without you!!!!!!

So starts the ride home of our 25 state count.

Thursday August 2, 2007 Driving to Pittsburgh, PA to visit Maribeth and the Pittsburgh Crew.  Plus get Katrin's fill of traditional Pittsburgh food (Maribeth and the food are the ONLY reasons we ever go back to Pgh!  Plus Ron, Deb, George, Lois etc etc etc)

Well once again we hit another driving snafu.  I had planned to take Rt 64 W into WV then up 7something to PA.  Well after looking at the map and talking to Dina, I decided on another route, on Rt 33.  This little 1 lane "highway" through the Appalachian Mountains in West Virginia.  We thought it would be a nice drive and very scenic.  Problem is you really couldn't go faster than 40MPH on ANY part of it, there were 9 degree grades and only straight aways of about 1/3 mile.  Makes for a VERY long drive.  Especially when I'm doing it!  As Li and I have a deal.  She does the high ways, I do the cities and mountains.  (like the Rocky Mountains at 3am, dumb dumb dumb, never again).  We usually share more driving than that, but with me so sick on this trip, that was pretty much the deal.  But we did get tons of photos, here they are:

(we were actually LEAVING, just stopped, turned around and took the photo)

Clara offering her opinion on West Virginia's Welcome Sign (what do you think she says??)

God that dog is gorgeous (yeah so is the scenery, Mom)

Did you know that there is an Eastern Continental Divide?  We didn't either!  And we crossed it at 1:45pm on Thursday August 2, 2007.  (Neither have most of the people we've talked to since so don't feel bad)  Well, we can now say we have driven over the Eastern and Western Continental Divides and the Mason-Dixon Line!  Not bad for just 1 year of travel in a GMC pick up, a pack of dogs and 2 young women!  I'd say we're pretty proud of our accomplishments in such a short amount of time!  Lisa, WE ROCK!

So anyway off to Pittsburgh, and on to truck trouble, oh no! :-(  Well I knew I needed new tires at the start of the trip and possibly new breaks.  I bought this truck in January 2006, it's a 2006 model, and already put 40,000 miles on it.  Kinda sad and scary for a 23 year old, huh?  (Li says, not really, :-))  So I had asked my mechanic when getting an oil change before this trip, can the tires make it?  He thought so, so off we went.  Well we hadn't gotten into PA yet and it was 4:30pm on a Thursday when the right side of the truck started to shake.  Earlier we had thought we'd heard something go 'clunk', gotten out to check it out, didn't see anything (and no I am NOT a complete idiot when it comes to my truck, Glenn) so we drove on.  But at 4:30pm with this 'movement' I said, Lisa, who was of course driving AGAIN, we're pulling off next exit and finding a garage.  We need to know if we can make it the last 2 hours to Pittsburgh tonight or if we need to get this fixed now.  I'm not breaking my beloved truck.  It's gotten us too many places, we owe it to it. 

So at the 1st exit all we could find was a Harley-Davidson shop, and they directed us back an exit to a garage.  We pull up, I get out, and I can hear the laughing.  It is now 4:45pm on a Thursday.  How much you want to guess they had bets on whether or not someone was going to walk in with a problem and make them stay over time?  The next thing we knew we had 3 guys surrounding the truck.  One checking out the right tire, another checking out the rear and one of course just standing there 'looking' useful as always happens.  I explained that AAA really hates phone calls from me stranded on 76 with a truck full of dogs and another person after 5pm in rush hour traffic, so can I get to Pgh tonight or do you guys need to fix it and get us on our way tomorrow?  Luckily for us, and them, they said we could easily get to Pgh, just need to make sure to get to a garage on Friday and get a tire rotation and balance then new tires when we got home to MA.  Thank god! 

Therefore we continued on to Monroeville and made it to Pittsburgh around 7pm on Thursday night, another day of driving done.  I had called Maribeth about the truck trouble, so she had already gotten an appt at her garage for the next day to get it fixed, yeah!  Thanks Maribeth!  We went to Eat N' Park (a Pittsburgh Staple!!!! and a mandatory stop every single time we go there.)  Where I couldn't eat anything and proceeded to puke in the Giant Eagle parking lot a 1/2hr later while Li was grabbing some hamburger for the dogs (those Colman Freezers are TERRIFIC!!!  I can't recommend them enough!! 9 days and stuff was STILL Frozen in it!  WOW!) and other stuff for us.

Oh no only 3 days left of vacation!  It is now Friday August 3, 2007 and we spent the day with Maribeth and visiting my old haunts of the Point Breeze Neighborhood.  You see I went to Carnegie Mellon University for all of 8 months.  That's right folks, before I had a mental breakdown!  In the mean time I made some great friends (Maribeth, Ron, Deb, George, Lois, and others) and rescued James (what could be better!).  But I lived in Point Breeze and walked in Frick Park everyday with James and Regal and most times with Maribeth as well.  I wanted to show Li all of these places and my old apartment, so that's where we spent the morning while Maribeth and Potter (her border collie rescue) were trying out for the Milk Bone commercial!  It was so cool as Maribeth got hired as the main dog trainer and Potter got hired to be in the commercial!  Their famous!  We have famous friends- dog and human!  How cool is that!!!?? 

The dogs are all wet from playing in "Hot Dog Dam", even Clara got wet!  Niche was in HEAVEN!  He hadn't been able to swim in nearly a week!  Poor deprived dog!  We also met a woman with 3 cardi's at Frick, I was floored (I think she was too LOL).

Later in the day we went to Rosie's Pierogies to get real home made delicious pierogies (thank you Ron for the intro into this wonderful Polish delicacy).  And Lisa got to eat them how they are supposed to be eaten, not how Katrin makes them (she thinks I make them rubbery, well I like them the way I eat them so there!).  And then we went to Rita's Frozen Custard.  We really have to get those up to MA.  There is supposed to be one in RI now, but those gelatos, oooo yum.  Way better than ice cream.  Even though me being lactose intolerant I'm still not supposed to have it, oh well.

Oh yeah should mention by now I am in migraine HELL day 1, headache #2 (Wed being headache #1).  This time my Relpax does NOT work.  And I have no dark room to go sleep all day in because I'm supposed to be VISITING one of my BEST friends!!!  Who I get to see like 1-2x a YEAR!  I'm not giving up this opportunity!  Oh well for me!

So the truck gets fixed, my head just hurts, we had all the appropriate foods, saw Maribeth and plan to meet other friends and Maribeth again for dinner at 6pm 10min from the Red Roof (I know, I know, sorry Li, but again, one of the very few chains that LIKES dogs!  Yeah Red Roof!  Go Stay there!!!  Support their PRO Dog policy!  Be a good dog owner!!  And clean up after your dog!  Don't leave them unattended in the room!  Don't let them eat the bed or draperies or give them baths in the tub etc etc etc, just be nice to the rest of us! <ok soap box over>)  Li and I went back to Red Roof around 4pm, took showers, I took a nice little nap, we got up and went to dinner.  We got to see George and Lois (they have 2 labradoodles- Toby and Shayna) and Linda (with the many cockers) and Maribeth.  Ron and Deb were excused at a hunt test, poor excuse, but oh well, I should be more important, guess I know where I stand :-) (just kidding guys).  I got my father 2 pub glasses as we were at a brew pub and he collects them, amazingly enough they did not break on the way home, good for us, and he LIKED them!  They had a fish on it too (he likes fish).

So ends our Pittsburgh day.  Below is a photo with all of our friends after dinner.

(L-R) Linda, Maribeth, Lisa (Niche at her feet, Clara in her lap), Monty, Katrin (James at her feet), Lois (George was taking the photo, thanks George!)

Hope to see you all again soon!!!!  Don't forget us!!!!

Now on to Albany, well really Averill Park, NY, but close enough to visit Holly and Leonard Craig (my corgi breeder and friends) and go to a corgi picnic).

Saturday August 4, 2007 Katrin still in pain with migraine, Lisa over tired yet still driving, the dogs doing very well due to all the exercise the day before, and we got up at 8am.  An amazing, never to be repeated feat.  We were ON THE ROAD, like the actual HIGH WAY by 9am.  OMG!

We basically just followed Wilma all the way back to where we started off ext 9 at the Cracker Barrel off Rt 90 where we met Holly at about 5pm on Saturday to travel to Lori's house so she could get Honor groomed, drop Luther off for a show, our dogs could get some exercise and we could all hang out for a bit.  So we met there around 5pm.  Lisa drove the ENTIRE way as again I have a now pretty severe migraine with an ice pick feeling up the back of my skull, pounding in the front of my skull and just all around pain, light sensitivity, noise sensitivity, movement sensitivity and nausea all while riding in a pick up truck for 7 hours.  Oh god, I was amaze I didn't hurl.  I put my sunglasses on, my hat on, curled up in my fleece blanket and slept as much as I could.  I am so sorry Li.  You are an amazing friend!

We finally left Lori's house around 8pm and had an hours drive back to the Cracker Barrel to meet Leonard (Holly's husband) for dinner and finally off to Averill Park, NY to their house for the night on an air mattress.  (Li and I would both like to thank Lori for her hospitality.  She has a lovely home and property.  Niche says he wants your pond!  A pond of his very own, in his very own back yard!  Poor, depraved retriever.  He says the Corgi's don't know how to appreciate it like he would.  So, he says, if you could package it up and mail it to MA that would be great).  My 3 boys all slept in the truck as Holly's bitch Sabrina was in heat just about to be bred and the last thing we needed to add to their home was the smell of more boys, especially intact boys as Niche is.  So we decided for everyone's peace of mind, my dogs would be perfectly find sleeping in the truck together all night.  Miss Clara got privileges and slept with Lisa and I on the air mattress.  Jake, the Craig's large shepherd mix would have been happy to join us, except then there would have been no room for us!  Sorry Jake!

Sunday August 5, 2007 Holly's home can be a bit chaotic with dog noise starting at about 5am, so Li and I BOTH took the best sleeping drugs we had and actually didn't have a bad night's sleep.  I woke up around 8am, still with a migraine, but what was I to expect.  I got up went outside and let my boys out, who were very happy to see me.  They had all been excellent overnight and I'm still not quite sure where each slept, but they seemed well adjusted.

We all then went out to breakfast, where I was NOT awake and got a tad picked on, very easy before 10am as many many people know, LOL.  It's almost not worth it at that hour! :-)  And then we finally went off to the Corgi Picnic!

Ok here's the quick run down on the Corgi Picnic as I'll bet by now you're either laughing so hard you can't read and you're ready to cry OR your bored to tears.  Either involves tears so here we go. 

Basically if there were a newspaper headline on the corgi picnic it would read:

FLAT-COATS WREAK MASS CHAOS AT OTHERWISE SEDATE CORGI PICNIC!  CORGI OWNERS IN HYSTERICS ABOUT FENCE BREAKING, SWIMMING FLAT-COATS TEACHING SWIMMING CORGIS (There were NO, we repeat NO, Drowned Corgis with all these Shenanigans) AND PASSING ON DEADLY POISONED IVY!!!! 

FLAT-COATS BANNED TO BACK OF PICK UP TRUCK FOR REMAINDER OF PARTY!!!! 

LESSON TO BE LEARNED- NEVER INVITE A RETRIEVER OF THE FLAT-COATED NATURE TO A HERDING BREED EVENT! (THOUGH THE SAME CANNOT BE SAID FOR THE REVERSE)

And that is how the Flat-Coats entertained us at the Corgi Picnic!  Great fun!  We'll see if we get invited back next year :-)

Monty's extended family (most of these people I don't know, sorry folks!, but the guy in the photo is Leonard holding Chloe and the woman on the right is Holly holding Destiny, they are my friends and breeders)

Around 3pm Li and I and a very tired pack of dogs got back into the pick up, found Rt 90 quite easily and headed East towards Rt 495 South and Foxboro, MA.  9 days and a lot of laughs as well as good times with MANY friends, I'd call that a success of a vacation, wouldn't you?

Send all comments to katrin@maplewooddog.com

Copyright (c) 2007 Clara Across America

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