September 2, 2025
I just spent almost an hour portioning out the dog food for this trip. Why? you may ask. I had heard that you can’t always get your brand in other states, so I purchased enough food to last a month, PLUS enough to have on-hand when we get home so I don’t have to think about shopping. I get my food through Chewy anyway, and I have a delivery scheduled for right after we get back. By the way, if you don’t do Autoship through Chewy, I recommend it – it works out great and I always have everything I need for the whole pack, cat included. (I don’t get paid for endorsing Chewy, I just like them. They’re a good company. One time, an entire order got lost or stolen and they sent another one the next day with no questions asked! Two other times, a shipment was smashed and broken and they replaced it – again, no questions asked. Oh how I wish they’d compensate me for these endorsements, but I don’t qualify for their criteria! Oh well.)
Another company I love to endorse, and I don’t get compensated for, is Subaru. That’ll be another post for another day, as we did not take that vehicle on this trip.
So, I spent about an hour measuring dog kibble for a month-long trip. I wanted to package it as compactly as possible because space in our vehicle is at a premium. Also, originally we thought we would be doing more camping than we did, and there was the possibility of encountering bears and other wildlife. We purchased bear proof containers, but I put the dog food in a Rubbermaid tote until it was time to camp at a bear-centric place. In the end, we didn’t camp at any such place, so I didn’t need to go all-out protecting our food!
I also miscalculated how much the dogs would eat. At home, they normally eat twice a day. That was not the case while traveling. As with most of us, appetites were lower in strange places. The dogs ate once a day, and turned up their noses at the second serving of food as well as their “toothy-brushy” treats. We also were gone for only three weeks! It turns out we lugged a lot of stuff with us unnecessarily.
We do buy an unusual brand of dog food, so it was possible I wouldn’t be able to find it easily on the road, although it is sometimes sold at WalMart and Petco. The brand is Nature’s Recipe, and you guessed it, I do not get paid to endorse them.
I placed the kibble into gallon-sized zip closure bags. Six days’ worth of dry food for two dogs squeezed into each gallon bag. Wish I could have fit seven servings to make it an even week, but no. Annoying! I measured out enough for four weeks, which meant five bags. But I also have to feed the dogs for the next few days before we depart, so that’s six one-gallon bags. Another one-gallon bag for treats. Plus 31 cans of canned food for fussy Petey. The cans are small plastic “frou-frou” cans, not metal cans, so they do not take up a lot of space. We were able to fit it all into one Rubbermaid tote, so I’m happy about that. Brad was so great about everything. This trip is going to be “all about the dogs” and really it was his idea initially, a year-and-a-half ago when he first suggested we go on this adventure.
Space is at a real premium but I am very talented at packing a car. About eight years ago, I cleared out three houses and an office building, and used my Subaru to make what seemed like four hundred trips full of stuff that I then needed to sort through in my basement. I got pretty good at packing a car efficiently.
I was able to pack that car so perfectly. I try not to be a control freak, but it’s hard to back off because I know exactly how things ought to be laid out to maximize efficiency and space. Hopefully we will survive this (hahaha I jest!).
A note: in honor of my three previous dogs who didn’t get to do this trip with me, I snuck a little something of each of them into my duffel bag. I thought about bringing their ashes (well, Hobie’s and Cooper’s – I do not have Hector’s ashes). But that would have been heavy and would have taken up too much space in an already packed-to- the-brim automobile. Also, Hector wouldn’t have been represented. Besides, I don’t think I’m ready to spread their ashes anywhere, nor do I want to do it in any of the places we are visiting. It felt wrong when I pictured myself doing it. Some day, I’ll do something with their ashes, but this isn’t the time.
I have these two very small stuffed dogs. One is made by Douglas; the other by TY. I named them Stuffy Douglas and TY Hound, respectively. They each fit in my hand. One of them looks a little bit like Hobie, and the other a little bit like Cooper. I put the toys in my duffel bag and they went with us on the trip representing Hobie and Coop.
As for Hector, I needed a blanket for Petey to sleep on in the car, and I still have “the red blanket” – the infamous red blanket that belonged to Hector. So, I brought that with me to represent the one, the only, Hector.
Funny enough, as I was looking at the map in Arkansas, I saw a town called Hector.
There are dozens of places called “Cooper” or “Cooper’s”.
And I saw a town on the map of Oklahoma called Hobart – one of the nicknames I used to call Hobie.
We are all packed and ready to go!
September 4, 2025
Coming to you from Oxford, Alabama in the foothills of the Appalachians! We left South Carolina at around 9:15 a.m., and with the time change (gained an hour!) we got here to our hotel at 5:15. I mean, it was perfect! Nothing at all went wrong.
I booked the hotel using the BringFido app and I highly recommend this app if you’re looking for hotels (or any other dog-friendly locations such as hiking, museums, sightseeing, state and National parks, restaurants, pubs, etc.).
I have never been to Alabama before, so I added it to my list of states visited. That means I’ve been to 23 states. There will be more added during this trip. So exciting!
The Appalachians surround this little town and who knew Alabama was so pretty? I look around and there are mountains completely encircling us in both directions. It’s quite lovely.
We went through the Talladega National Forest which ended right before we got here. That’s also where the car races take place. Earlier, we went through Darlington, SC.
When I dropped off our cat, Tux, at the kitty hotel in North Myrtle Beach this morning, the Ford Mustang enthusiasts were in town (it’s an event called “Mustang Week” that happens every year right after Labor Day). I’m sensing a car-racing theme for day one.
Traffic through Atlanta was as awful as New York or Boston. Lots of construction and of course we went through right at rush hour. But we got to the hotel “early” because of the time change to Central Time.
In Georgia, we didn’t stop at, but saw that a Laurel & Hardy Museum exists. I got a real kick out of that. Also, there are several stretches of road named for other famous people. Lots of well-known folks are from Georgia.Share
The dogs did great. Mommy didn’t. I was helping Petey from the back of the van to the front seat and he launched head-first into the lower dashboard. Brad said it was a pretty hard bump, but I didn’t think it was. Then, when I picked up Petey to put him on my lap he shrieked. I was so upset with myself. I kept apologizing. He’s ok though.
Later on, Charlie had trouble using the ramp up into the van. He got his front legs in, and when I went to help him with the rear legs, he didn’t like that, so he “shut down” and laid down on the ramp. Ugh. Some of his legs were dangling. I had to help him get off the ramp (which is really just one step, it’s not a long ramp).
But the dogs are doing remarkably well so far. They slept almost the entire time in the van. Sometimes I’d see them looking around, but mostly it was sleeping, just like they do on any given day at home, so really what’s the difference?
I thought they’d be fussy about eating. Nope! They were actually VERY hungry the first night and they ate their food as soon as we got to the hotel.
I was a good pet owner and picked up after the dogs, as I always do. They will go out tonight right before bed, and we’ll see how that goes. I’ll report on that next time.
The things I was worried about for months didn’t happen. So… so far, so good!
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