Will be flying back to California tomorrow to finalize the sale of my house there, AND--most important of all--to pick up the dogs. I will spend a few days there, maybe three or four, then gas up the Silverado, and the beasts and I are off on our great road trip in search of dog friendly motels across the mighty US of A.
I will try as much as possible to keep to a southerly route to try to avoid possible snow in this era of "warming."
Will have the laptop along and will try to put up a couple of posts--I hope they're not as boring as the slideshows of yesteryear by your local neighborhood bore, "And here I am in the Zambezi River . . . "
Anyhow, off we go . . .
Well if you were with Jezza, Capt Slow and the Hamster standing on an upside down, semi-submerged Toyota Hilux floating down said Zambezi...
ReplyDeleteLa Quinta Inns accepts dogs. Enjoy the ride.
ReplyDeleteSecond on the La Quinta recommendation. Safe travels. Wish I could convince my Aunt to leave CA, but then I'm in WA which is only marginally better.
DeleteOn the very low end, but Motel 6 always takes pets.
ReplyDeleteThe best part about it is that not only will global warming cause the snow you will be avoiding in the north, it will also cause the nice, balmy temperatures you will experience in the south... unless they're cold, in which case they're from global warming too.
ReplyDeleteIt. Never. Ends.
- reader #1482
Well, since you are taking the southerly route, and if you are of a mind and have never seen it before or mind the delay, the Grand Canyon is a worthwhile stop.
ReplyDeleteAlso, as someone who has driven across the USA a couple times, you will have a choice of mind-numbingly boring landscapes driving through Arizona, New Mexico, and West Texas, if you take the South route. The same driving through Kansas if you take the middle route, which is leavened by the absolute beauty of Colorado, but not by much. I fell asleep at the wheel in Kansas, it is that boring. At least there is some mountains in NM. Oh, and driving across Texas will take at least a day and stop in El Paso to gas up and eat cause if I remember correctly there is nowhere to stop in the West Texas Desert.I
Course all of this advice presupposes that you have never done a long haul trip before, for which I apologize for my presumption.
Nonsense. You have Fabens, Sierra Blanca, Van Horn, Pecos (if you go south) or Monahans, Odessa, Midland (if you take the northerly TX route).
DeleteIf you take I-40, you'll only spend 2.5-3 hours crossing Texas, unless stopping to sample some of the food or attractions along the way.
DeleteMerkwurdigliebe,
DeleteDon't tell them that, they'll move here. How do you think Marfa became infested with "eclectic" shops?
And don't forget to wind down the windows a bit - you know, "wind in the fur" type stuff for the Pups. My one always enjoyed it on road trips across Oz, although She Who Must Be Obeyed wasn't too fussed.
ReplyDelete"mind-numbingly boring landscapes driving through Arizona, New Mexico, and West Texas": then somebody should introduce kangaroos. They would brighten up the place no end.
ReplyDeleteWe did have camels once. When Jefferson Davis was Secretary of War, in 1853, the War Department introduced them to carry supplies to the forts in West Texas, New Mexico, all the way to Arizona. When the Union broke apart, the camels were abandoned, and wandered wild for fifty years or more. Travelers were sometimes startled as they drove around a curve to see a camel calmly chewing cud. Sigh, things used to be much more interesting.
DeleteMFA
Been reading articles this morning (Watcher of Weasels) on the dearth of "Men With Chests".... As you make your way eastward, do yourself a favor and DO take the trip through AZ, NM, TX. As you do, reflect on the grit, determination, 'manliness' of our forebears who made the expansion westward on foot...horseback...wagon. Admire the vast expanses still available in that region of the country and imagine the heart and soul of someone who made that perilous journey 150-200 years ago. Humbling. Amazing. I am eternally grateful for the opportunities I've had to view this beautiful country from the safe, warm cockpit of commercial airliners, and later from the cockpit of corporate aircraft, and, yes, from the cab of my F150, and never, EVER, lose the awe of what hardy, 'manly' men our ancestors were.
ReplyDeleteNicely stated!
DeleteUmmm, dude?
DeleteThose the same manly chesty men that traveled west with their wives and children? I'm a guy but I'd take my hat off to any of the women that traveled that trail to the west and I met some of them.
I didn't mean to insult anyone from AZ,NM, KS or TX (well maybe texas ;-P) about their landscapes, but I'm from MY and what I consider to be boring may in fact be stark beauty, but I cannot see that because there is not one damned tree or anything that variates the landscape above flat, for miles in any of the routes I named in my previous post. The closest I come to seeing a desert is when Lake Ontario freezes over every year.
DeleteG**D*** AUTOCORRUPT! NY not MY.
DeleteI also hate auto-correct and a lot of those automatic formatting functions.
DeleteHMS Defiant-- Absolutely no offense intended towards women or children... Should I also have mentioned dogs, horses, livestock...
Delete"DUDE"... tone down the political correctness just a notch or two...
The "men with chests" came from the article that was still fresh in my mind...THOSE men took their wives and children along on what was considered a perilous journey knowing full well that the safety and security of their loved ones was COMPLETELY THEIR RESPONSIBILITY!!
There was no friendly, local police force or Sheriff to call upon. No Red Cross. No Fast Water Rescue Team. Families were tougher then.
Got openings in our guest house about 10 miles off I-10, fenced in yard and pet friendly if you're interested. It would be exit 508, so a little more than halfway across TX. Sarge has my Email.
ReplyDeleteHave fond memories of driving cross country many times with long gone 95lb Black Lab. Should be a fun trip. Dogs are good traveling companions.
ReplyDeleteone of our huskies is impossible to transport without him losing his bowels... repetitiously... it's not pretty... but in general.. yeah.. dogs love the road
DeleteHere I am, in the Zambezi River, that fin closing from behind me is probably a Zambezi Shar......
ReplyDeleteThe So Cal Auto Club used to have a pet friendly motel travel guide. I've used it in the past and it was quite good. However, we stayed at a Red Lion in Northern CA two years ago that was advertised as pet friendly and they were not.
ReplyDeleteI hope you set your snake on them, Mike.
Deleteon my way from seoul to toronto a dozen years ago i flew into pdx, bought a used toyota from hertz and spent most of my home leave driving cross country. best.trip.ever.
ReplyDeleteHere I am, beside the mighty Zambezi River, looking right into Victoria Faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaallllllllllllllllllllllllllllllssssssssssssssssssssssss....
ReplyDeleteYour staying in motels, why?
ReplyDeleteThere are no doubt enough good blogger folk (of questionable morals) along the route to put you & the dogs up for a night.
Question of the Day:
ReplyDeleteWhat was Matt Lauer thinking while interviewing Bill O'Reilly on his sexual abuse dilemma.
I always wonder just what the guy is accused of doing. I married young and have been hit upon more than I have hit, and wonder what all those guys must be thinking, if they were, indeed proposing something untoward. I am ninety nine percent certain that their arrogance arises more from the fact that they live in an insulated world, in which wives and children and even housekeepers do not venture, than from some notion that their sexual predation is allowed.
DeleteAnd even some of that, I had to wonder,e.g. Roger Ailes, a seventy plus years man with cancer, I naively asked what he could have possibly hoped to accomplish, until someone wiser in the ways of the world explained to me that he had made some comments, entirely verbally, not kinetically in any way. Just how much of a threat could that old guy pose?
Knowing the story about Pot-I-Phar's wife, I can easily understand what VP Pence is thinking.
MFA
VP Pence is very wise in handling his life that way. Billy Graham, when he was still active and traveling, wouldn't even get on an elevator with a woman if he was by himself.
DeleteSimple drive. Get to I40, head east. Safe travels.
ReplyDeleteYes, I-40 is the way to go, if it is Carolinas as memory serves.
ReplyDeleteDear Dip,
ReplyDeleteSafe travels! I love road trips across our great country and envy you!
Question: Is it just me, or has Angelo Codevilla's 2014 book “To Make and Keep Peace Among Ourselves and With All Nations” sunk without a trace? I had never heard of it, came across it a few days ago, am several chapters into it, and am blown away. It seems quite important.
They say Trump doesn't read, but what he and Tillerson have been saying and doing re foreign policy tracks closely with this book. Great minds think alike, perhaps.
Just two of the central ideas deserve to be widely discussed, IMHO. They are, first, that it is the central task of statesmen to do what the title says, make and keep peace domestically and with other nations. And second, that war abroad always leads to discord at home. Codevilla discusses and supports these and related ideas through US and world history, starting with the Peloponnesian wars and their disastrous effect on the civic life of Athens.
So far Codevilla hasn't said, “America First,” or “We don't win anymore,” but he might as well have.
The title of the book is terrible—I have to look it up every time I want to mention it.
Best wishes from the Ohio North Coast!
I am a Codevilla fan, primarily based on his original "Ruling Class" piece published so long ago [it seems now] at American Spectator.
DeleteIf you haven't already read it, put his "The Character of Nations" on your to-read stack.
http://a.co/btD1QRq
Thank you!
DeleteDip, I know this is OT but wondered if you had seen this: http://freebeacon.com/national-security/green-beret-trainer-faults-careerism-among-senior-officers-weakening-special-ops/
ReplyDeleteVery bad, IMHO. Of course, purge the critical officer rather than the folks responsible for weakening SF.