Home!!!

We are finally home!! We got here about 10 p.m. and the cats finally got to eat, because the sitter wasn't scheduled for tonight, and I got a second dinner too. Me and the cats played around and rough-housed by way of greeting.

I'm very glad to be home and to go back to our routines, and to snuggle in on Mom and Dad's bed every night ... but you know, I'll miss the open road. If nothing else, on the road I get to sleep a lot -- on Mom's lap, Dad's lap, or the pile of pillows they have for me in the middle of the SUV. At all sorts of time, I get to wake up and smell cows, sheep, corn, soybeans ... and then get back to sleep. Then suddenly we're jumping out at some rest stop and I have to "Go pee, Sundance!"

Today we woke up in Jamestown, NY and got a late start because we had had such a late arrival last night. We took a little walk around Lake Chautauqua (shown), a big, popular lake in the back corner of New York, famous for people like Lucille Ball (who grew up there) and Rebecca Richmond, my Dad's author grandmother, who had a house there for years and is buried there, along with my Dad's stepfather, known to him as "Dad."

Although last night we were worn out with state highways, we ended up doing a stretch of one this morning anyway, because it looked right on the map. It ended up being beautiful rolling New York hills and cattle ranches (shown), not beef but dairy cows, and now that we're here in this part of the country, they're also selling corn and other veggies to us along the side of the road, although we never stopped to buy any because we knew tonight we would be home and have to unpack Who Knows What in the cooler.

After that, it was Interstate Boogie (I slept, varying my position) and, long story short, we are here, all unpacked and all exhausted. Our road trip took about 4500 miles, and we're very pleased with most of them, and won't hesitate to do it again sometime soon.

So I'm finishing my blog for this trip, and thanks for listening. I'll let you know when the next one starts. In the meantime, let us know your thoughts (about anything! but especially dogs) here, or at my Dad's email, lee@leerichmond.com

6 States

We visited six states today. First thing, we got on the road early in Burlington, Iowa, and immediately crossed a bridge over the Mississippi which brought us into Illinois, adding up to two states so far. (OK, I admit, that's cheating ...)

We started off on state highways again. In Peoria, Illinois we got out and walked around for awhile. They're working hard to restore their waterfront, and we all appreciated the steamer which people can ride on. The water is the big Illinois River, which comes down from Lake Michigan. We also walked a little bit through the city, which feels kind of empty, although they seem to be trying hard.

We stayed on state roads through Illinois, and stopped at very nice town park in Remington, Illinois for a lunch made up from our cooler, including Rocky Ford watermelon, which I got to share. I love watermelon!

Then we drove halfway across Indiana, but by then the cornfields, soybean fields, grain elevators and nice little towns where you had to slow down to 35 and then spend 10 minutes passing the traffic that had backed up in front of you ... well, it was all starting to look and feel pretty much the same, so we went for some four-lane roads and then, hooray -- the Interstates!

Now we made time! We finished off Indiana, then Ohio. By then it was dark, but Mom and Dad want to get home by tomorrow evening, so they decided to push on across the tip of Pennsylvania and stop in Jamestown, New York. We ended up driving 13 hours.

We landed in Jamestown about 11:30 p.m. and are just finishing winding down and watching hurricane Earl on the Weather Channel. Then tomorrow it's up early again and heading for home, Dunbarton, New Hampshire. Whatever: as long as I get to ride with my Mom and Dad, it's all cool.

Corn, corn, corn

Today was another day that we spent almost entirely in the car, with me almost entirely sleeping. As I've mentioned in previous posts, this is generally fine with me because I am still resting up from my strenuous week in Madrid with everybody running around and buying things, and my brother Hondo's visit, and I could go on.

This is a picture of me and my Mom right after we drove over the Missouri River bridge on the border of Iowa. Lots of flooding out there and we had to drive dozens of miles out of our way to avoid washed out bridges and roads.

We drove from early Nebraska on through Iowa, ending up right on the eastern border of Iowa on the edge of the Mississippi River, where we are now snoozing out in another nice motel found on the Internet.

Our trip is running a little longer than it might because Mom and Dad are going almost entirely on state routes, avoiding the Interstates. They explain that that way you can see all the towns, and drive right next to beautiful farming fields and talk about what the people might be doing out there, and I can see the point, because Interstates are just about always only about which trucks to pass, and which trucks to avoid.

So when we started out in western Nebraska it was all about trains, because our highway was right next to the main train route, and it was one big (BIG!) train every ten minutes, trains filled with coal going toward the sun that it would take us five minutes to pass, other empty coal trains going away from the sun that we passed in a minute, trains full of grain, trains full of every kind of car. This went on for a couple of hours (as near as I can judge, since I was asleep a lot of the time).

Then it was all about corn. Corn for cattle, corn for ethanol, popcorn corn -- hundreds of miles of corn. (Unlike New England, nobody was selling corn for people by the side of the road.) Mom and I posed for a corn shot, with me looking back at the 500 miles of corn we had already traveled.

Eastern Iowa still had corn, but it was also about hay pastures and grazing cattle and beautiful rolling hills and pretty little farm houses.

Pretty wonderful country we live in, huh?

On the Road Again!

Today we said goodbye to our lovely New Mexico casita and set off for our road trip back home. Mom turned off the solar electric power system without any coaching from Dad, and I was proud of her.

We stopped at the Santa Fe Farmer's Market on our way out. This nice woman selling blackberries offered me one, but I couldn't get interested in it, although I tried, but I did have a nice time rolling it around on the sidewalk with my nose. (Watermelons are another story ...)

We headed north to Colorado, and then got onto a state highway and hundreds of miles driving through what Mom and Dad tell me were beautiful rangelands. To tell the truth, I spent most of that part of the trip sleeping, because I did miss out on quite a few naps during our active week in Madrid. A few times I woke up and got into my Navigator position, shown here.

In the middle of the rangelands, we stopped at this town called Rocky Ford, Colorado. Mom and Dad already had a Rocky Ford miniature watermelon they had bought in Santa Fe. They promptly bought two more and a cantelope for good measure. Rocky Ford has to be the world capital of melons! (The watermelons get their water from the Arkansas River, which goes through town.) Mom started feeding me watermelon chunks, and I tell you, I could eat watermelon all day! After that, I went to sleep for another 150 miles.

Tonight we're in a nice motel in North Platte, Nebraska, aiming for Illinois by the end of day tomorrow.

We're having a fight with blogger. However, I think my Dad was able to at least publish some pretty neat pictures we took with my brother Hondo while we took a beautiful walk along the crest of the Sandia Mountain overlooking Albuquerque. As you can see by the pictures, it was pretty far down. I was a tractoring dog the whole 3 miles, and pretty much spent the rest of the day sleeping.

Also, first thing this morning we went to the dump, and then over to the Flea Market again, which was a lot of fun again. I met some very nice dogs except one nasty poodle who came afeter me. Mom and Dad got some cool things including a Day of the Dead figure for the bathroom and a very good table lamp for $5, what we would have paid $45 for in Santa Fe. After we got back from the mountain, the humans went up to Harry's Roadhouse Cafe for dinner and I slept in the car, which was fine by me.

Hondo flies back to New York City tomorrow at noon; then we three will shut down the Casita Tuesday morning and start driving east.

Walking the Cliff

Mom's New Tub

Well, it's come down to this: Mom plans to take a tub in a cattle watering tank.

No, I'm not kidding. She went and bought a 150-gallon cattle watering tank at our local feed store, which she now has set up next to the patio, and which Dad has obligingly filled up with water from our wonderful well. Apparently the idea is, if she covers it with plastic and leaves it in the New Mexico sun all day, it will be nice and warm for her to take a tub at the end of the day.

As you can see by the photo, I'm pretty embarrassed. I mean, think of the neighbors. Of course, we don't have any neighbors ... but still ...

Other than that, it was a nice day. Mom and Hondo went for a tour of the gold mine in the Ortiz Mountains. Meanwhile, Dad and I went to a little dusty town-wide yard sale in Cerillos, where we didn't find much except barking dogs; fortunately, they were all penned in. Then the four of us went to Santa Fe for a nice lunch at an outdoor place that allowed dogs, picked up some groceries for dinner, went and bought Mom's damned tub, came back to our casita, took a nice big walk around the land ... and then Dad grilled steak in the chiminea at sunset, and everybody went to bed early. Beautiful sunset, with some rain showers. Nothing out there to bark at tonight, so it's early to bed for me as well.