(114) We're Off

Finally the great day has arrived. We are on our way. I got home from work after stopping for groceries for the road and Brad had the car mostly packed and the dogs were beside themselves. Beeker kept howling at me and like yesterday, followed me everywhere. When I went outside to put my bag in the truck, he ran outside but stayed within viewing distance so that he would be ready at a moment’s notice. Brad mentioned that they had been over the top with excitement just from the change of routine and his(Brad’s) moving inside and outside all morning.

We left home by three this afternoon. Max got settled fairly quickly once he knew that he was in the same automobile as Brad. There is nothing that makes Max more anxious than being separated from Brad. Beeks on the other hand was another story all together. First off, his usual riding position had been changed because we packed the back seat up with our bags and the dogs’ bags. Brad also put the traveling food box and the cooler in the middle of the seat and then piled it with towels and Beek’s rug. Hence the problem. Beeks kept trying to lie down on his rug but couldn’t get comfortable in the small box. It wasn’t piled up high enough to buffer the sides and his whole body didn’t fit into the small box. He kept working different positions to figure out a comfortable way to settle but he just couldn’t get it to work out. It probably didn’t help that we kept laughing at him either. He would put his rump in the box and then his front legs outside in a sit sort of position. Then he tried to out his rump on the outside of the area, next to the door and put his head on the box. He also tried to lay with his body in the box with his front paws outside and his head bent backward so that it could rest on Brad’s seat back. He’s a contortionist! I’m outing him in Cirque du Soleil next week. At a gas stop we rearranged his throne and he is resting much more comfortable now.
Because we were busy as soon as I got home, I hadn’t eaten lunch and Brad had eaten an early lunch so we decided to check McDonald’s dollar menu in Indianapolis. Before you start to groan, let me rationalize our choice for you. First off, we haven’t eaten McDonald’s food (except for the ice cream) in an extremely long time. However we are trying not to spend much money on this trip so we agreed to check out the choices for a dollar and then if we didn’t like it we would go to Subway (our usual choice…we split the $5 foot long). We ate dinner for $4.35. We decided that we like the change from Subway but although the calories were probably more at Micky D’s it isn’t as mentally filling. After I ate my Mcdouble sandwich and small fries, I was still hungry. It was gone so quickly that I didn’t feel full. Given a few hours I am sure that I won’t be hungry. They say it takes the mind 20 minutes to know that the stomach is full. Whatever! I think we will be going back to Subway next time, but those fries are the BEST! We ordered inside because we couldn’t figure out the drive Thru menu. We also used it as an all stop. When we returned to the car with the sack, both dogs were sniffing the air. Beeks had his paws on the center arm rest. I assumed he was very interested in the Micky D’s bag. I was wrong. As soon as I opened the door to sit down I noticed it. A long forgotten (from my sister’s visit two weeks ago) bag of sweet potato chews from my purse was laying half out on the car floor. “Oh”, you might say… “it just fell out when you left the car”. You’d be wrong. The proof is that it was soaking wet with dog saliva! Beeks had that look in his eye that says, “What? Moi?” Brad wanted me to scold him but I was laughing so hard I couldn’t get it out of my mouth. He’s only a Sneeker Beeker when he is in Brad’s car. Honest! He doesn’t get anything from my car when he rides with me. Something about his past history and his ability to find delicious things when he roots around in brad’s car has positively rewarded him and he continues to get positive rewards for his efforts. As I shared in a previous post, he has found and eaten a whole bag of dog treats, Kleenex in a box, cookies in a bag, and all of Nebraska in an Atlas. I think Brad will be watching him much more carefully now. We have a few more hours to travel until we get to Lexington Kentucky. Free points and they will accept dogs even ones over 3 pounds. We’ve stayed there before and it gives us a good head start for driving tomorrow. I’ll let you know.