Hey everybody! This ol' lady was on a podcast! There's a first time for everything.
Check out my episode on Ramblings from the Little Shed. It was great fun, even though my room (behind me in the video) is a mess and I kept blinking! But two people told me they didn't even notice so maybe I shouldn't have mentioned that here.
Don't you love the picture Holly B. Gutwillinger came up with of the RV with Tux and Cooper inside?! Hilarious! Hope you'll give it a listen. Thank you, if you do!
Episode Summary
What happens when grief, love letters, and a frozen pizza-stealing dog collide? You get Dear Hobie: Letters to My Heart Dog — a memoir unlike any other. This week, Holly and Rogan welcome Kathy Mandell, a former travel industry executive turned memoirist, who spent a decade quietly sitting on the most heartfelt book she never planned to publish.
From the chaos of being dragged down the street by two enormous dogs, to the daily ritual of HowlFest (yes, it's exactly what it sounds like), to uncovering over 1,000 WWII love letters her father wrote to her mother — Kathy's conversation overflows with warmth, wit, and the particular ache of loving animals with your whole heart. Meet the Pets • Tux — 16-year-old cat who dresses better than most of us (tuxedo markings, bow tie, spats — the full look) • Charlie Brown — 14-year-old hound dog, the big gentle one • Petey — 10-year-old Chihuahua/Dachshund mix, Kathy's "little buddy," daily Substack muse, and apparent podcast critic (he moaned audibly every time Hobie came up) What We Talked About • The book that almost wasn't: Kathy began writing letters to her dog Hobie during his final year, continued after his passing as therapy, uploaded the manuscript to Amazon in 2023... then quickly took it down. It sat for a decade until her husband spotted it over her shoulder. • HowlFest — the daily morning howling ritual Petey and Charlie perform with Kathy's husband. If he's late, they start without him. • Traveling with dogs: Kathy's three-week cross-country road trip (South Carolina → Arizona → back) with two dogs, zero pet-related obstacles, and a van that wasn't quite big enough. An RV is incoming. • Pet grief and the Facebook group: Kathy took a course with the Association of Pet Loss and Bereavement and now offers comfort to grieving pet owners online. Her message: "It doesn't get easier — it gets less. You learn to live around it." • Her father's 1,000+ WWII love letters: Found in a closet after her parents passed. Her dad wrote to her mom every single day for nearly four years while serving in Europe under General Patton. Kathy typed them all out — in cursive, bad handwriting and all — and published several volumes. A Substack series may be on the horizon. • The second memoir: Kathy is currently drafting a memoir about her 30+ years in the travel industry. She wrote 80,000 raw words during a January memoir writing sprint (think NaNoWriMo, but for nonfiction lovers). • Substack strategy: Consistency is the key. Kathy posts written essays weekly and daily notes under #DailyDogLady — almost always featuring Petey.
Where to Find Kathy
• 📖 Book: Dear Hobie: Letters to My Heart Dog — available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, and Google Books
• ✍️ Substack: Travelling Dog Lady
• 🐕 Daily content: Follow Where to Find Kathy • 📖 Book: Dear Hobie: Letters to My Heart Dog — available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, and Google Books • ✍️ Substack: Travelling Dog Lady • 🐕 Daily content: Follow #DailyDogLady for your regular Petey fix
Kelsey Aamot; Kris Brown; and Amber Harbert are the winners!
We had over 2,000 entries to the giveaway, and more than 1,600 added Dear Hobie to their shelves. I'm so touched by the interest in my book, and I hope you do get yourselves a copy.
I hope Kelsey, Kris and Amber enjoy the book.
Thank you doesn't seem like enough. I am overwhelmed at the reception my little book has received. So grateful!
The books will be sent out by the end of this week, and I'll click the "Copies are in the mail" button so the winners will know when their copy is on the way.
Blessings for a safe and happy holiday season to everyone.
I thought I would be posting my Epic Road Trip diary entries for the next few months. But I realized some entries were so short, I started combining two, three, or four days worth of entries into each post. Suddenly, they’re done.
This post is a look back at the completed trip and the backstory of how this trip came to be.
This trip was a dream come true. The travel company where I worked for three decades was a European tour operator. I have been all over Europe, and I hate flying SO much you have no idea how much. I am grateful for the experience though — it was the best job in the world at the time.
The Backstory
My whole life, I’ve wanted to drive by car across the United States. I grew up in Massachusetts, my family is from Illinois, and I’ve spent a ton of time in the northeastern and southeastern states. I had flown across the U.S. to visit California, Las Vegas, Arizona and the western part of Mexico. But I had never driven west of Chicago. I really wanted to do it — it was on the yearning list.
I mentioned this to my husband when I first met him, and found out that he had done this trip multiple times. He lived on both the east and west coasts at various different times.
I had started this blog, many years ago (too many!) as the first step in this journey. The idea being to travel with my dogs across the country in an RV. At that time, the two dogs I had in mind were Hobie and Hector, now long gone. I wanted to do this trip when I was younger, but life had other plans. So, I did it after I retired, like a lot of people do. And that’s ok.
In 2021, we decided to get this accomplished, but we had a false start. I bought a used Ford Transit work van and Brad converted it to a camper. He has a lot of experience building boats and living on boats, so he knew how to do this stuff. It was basically a live-aboard boat with wheels lol.
Our van we named Vanadieu. Photo by me.
We took three trips in that van. On the first trip, camping in Florida, we took our ailing cat Cali with us instead of a dog. She ended up dying on that trip, it was horrible. The second trip, we went up to Maryland with one dog, Petey. The third trip, we went to Florida, again with Petey. On the way back, my knee bumped the keychain hanging from the ignition while I was driving… the ignition shut off! While driving on I-95! Thankfully, the key was still in the ON position, so I had power steering. I managed to pull over and we were safe. It was at that moment that I decided to sell the van. I didn’t trust it at all. That stopped our cross-country travel plans for a while.
When our dog, Cooper, died in 2024, that’s when we started talking about a trip with the remaining two dogs. Two is a lot easier than three, and especially because Cooper was special needs, it would have been very hard to travel with him. We decided we would go in the fall of 2025. During the ensuing 18 months, we kept changing our minds: no dogs. Yes, dogs. No dogs, just us. Ok. Wait, we can’t do this — Neither of us wanted to leave them for the length of time it would take to do this journey. It was decided: they were coming. The cat would go to kitty resort, which he loves. It would cost a lot, but that’s ok, this was to be my trip of a lifetime.
Cooper and Tux. Photo by me.
At first we were going to use my Subaru. Then we decided our minivan, while older, would be more roomy. We bought so many things for this trip, we planned routes on paper maps and online, we did test rides with the dogs, took the rear seats out of the van and put in a floor. We mock packed the van to see what it would be like, and took pictures so we would remember how we packed.
This trip, this idea, this wish, this hankerin’ was floating around in my mind ever since I can remember. East coast kids in the ‘60s and ‘70s all wanted to drive to California. I loved our family road trips with my parents between Massachusetts and Illinois — we did that twice a year. I loved road trips to Florida which I did several times with lots of different friends or friend groups. I enjoyed my solo trips, with dogs, to South Carolina which led me to move here permanently.
But I had never crossed the Mississippi by car. I had never seen the Grand Canyon except by airplane. I had never brought my dogs anywhere other than up and down Interstate 95 from New England to the southeast and back.
The Trip
We visited eighteen states; twelve of them I had never been to before. We decided to take the southern route from South Carolina to Arizona/Utah, then go north, then take a right and head east at South Dakota, through Iowa, then southeast towards home.
Seeing the Grand Canyon was the highlight. We camped there for three days. It was hard. We are seniors, and so are the dogs. It was both too hot and too cold, depending on the time of day. It was uncomfortable, but the Canyon itself is stunning beyond description. Everyone must see this thing. You simply must!
My favorite sights were the most tacky! Cadillac Ranch, Standin’ On The Corner in Winslow Arizona, The Breaking Bad Store, Wall Drug, Mount Rushmore, Sturgis and Deadwood. Total tourist traps, all of them, but I loved them all, especially Cadillac Ranch and Standin’ on The Corner. Route 66 was my favorite thing. I think I may have cried. We got to visit Best Friends Animal Sanctuary!
HIstoric Route 66 Winslow, AZ. Photo by me.
Of all the states, South Dakota was the one I liked best, followed by Kentucky and (oddly enough) North Carolina. I liked Oklahoma, too. I am grateful to have seen Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and Texas but the weather is way too dry for me, and I had issues with the elevation (dizzy, headache, felt like I was swimming through Jell-O).
I worried about Charlie Brown Hound as well. He was 13 at the time of the trip, and that’s a lot to go through for an old dog. But really I had nothing to worry about. He did great and he has since turned 14 and is doing really well. Every day is a blessing. He is the sweetest old hound dog.
Petey did great. He is such a good traveler. He’s small, so I can pick him up with one hand if I need to. He just loves being with us. As long as he is with me, he doesn’t care where he goes. We are very attached to each other. I couldn’t have had a good time without him by my side.
During this trip we got a number of Bark Ranger Tags from National Parks! I haven’t figured out what to do with them yet — too many to hang on collars.
Part of our collection of Bark Ranger tags. Photo by me.
We humans got along great, and that’s no small accomplishment for two people on the road for 20 days in a small van. We ended up calling this trip The Great Bathrooms of America Tour, as it seemed like mainly what we did was search for restrooms! I am so lucky to have found such a cool partner!
We did not camp as much as we had originally planned. We camped just the three days at the Grand Canyon, then stayed at hotels the rest of the time. The hotels were reasonably-priced — all dog-friendly of course, and we had no problems at all. A couple properties were not as nice as others, but most were surprisingly nice for low-budget accommodations. Coming from the travel business where I got first-class or business-class perks, I can be an accommodations snob. If I was happy (which I was) then nothing bad can be said about these properties.
We got familiar with many hotel parking lots. Photo by me.
The BringFido app was the reason for locating such good hotels. I did a lot of research a day or two in advance of each stop, and found the best-rated hotel for the most reasonable price. Availability was never an issue. Sometimes there were not first-floor rooms available, but that was the only problem, and that only happened about three times.
BringFido is great for other information, too, such as what’s allowed at National Parks, which restaurants and other stops are dog-friendly, what is expected of dog owners at various sites and so forth. It was an invaluable app and I highly recommend it if you’re going to travel with a pooch. I do not get any monetary compensation for that endorsement, it comes purely from being a satisfied user of the app, period.
This wraps up the Epic Road Trip posts. Thank you SO much for reading, everyone who stuck with it, I do appreciate you! We do not know when, or where, our next trip will happen, but as soon as we do you’ll hear about it right here.
What’s next? So much! I have so many things I want to write about and I hope you like what is coming up in 2026!
