home at last

We have made it safely home from our trip to Illinois. Grizzly made it, and seems happy to be home. On the way to Illinois, we stopped halfway, driving the 900 miles in two days. I already explained how Grizzly did with that! On the way back, we drove it in one straight shot, a 15 hr day. Surprisingly, Grizzly did great in the car on that ride! He slept in the backseat for most of the trip, and only got antsy the last hour or so.

I'm really glad to be home, back in my own bed, and back where there isn't as much humidity. :)

a dog on the road - hotel room

Our last, and biggest, ordeal associated with road tripping with a dog from CO to IL.

Obstacle 3: Grizzly needed to behave in a hotel room

 
This one was tricky. (On the way to IL, we stopped halfway, since we weren't able to start driving early in the morning and didn't want to lose any time.) First, we had to find a hotel that would allow us to have a dog in the room, that wasn't too expensive. We ended up in a cheap motel chain, paying 53 for the room, plus an extra 10 for the dog. All in all that's not too bad.

The challenge came when we got to the hotel room. By the time we got there, we were super tired, and Grizzly had tons of energy because he'd been cooped up in the car. He went crazy when we got out of the car, pulling on his leash and wanting to run around. After we got him calmed down, we went into the room and went to bed immediately.

At home, we don't allow Grizzly to sleep on our bed. We like our space and don't want him to be on the bed moving around all night. So, we followed the same rule in the hotel room. We slept for about an hour when Grizzly started barking. There were too many sounds, smells, and people moving around for him to calm down. We caved and let him on the bed at this point. He did stop barking...but he made sleeping near impossible.

When morning rolled around, we did convince him to sleep on the floor, on the comforter from the bed, for a couple hours while we attempted to catch up on sleep.

    
And, as I write, this, we're alive, awake, only mildly exhausted, so we must have done alright.

a dog on the road - driving

Part 2 of the dog on the road adventures!

Obstacle 2: We needed to figure out how to keep him contained in the car.

This wasn't too terribly difficult, as we just put his bed in the backseat and hooked his leash to the headrests back there. By the end of the trip, he had pretty much figured out that he wasn't supposed to be in the front with us.

Also on this trip, Alex dubbed Grizzly a 'miniature giant space bear'. I think it works. :)

a dog on the road - packing

I promised an update on how taking Grizzly with us to Illinois went, so here's part 1!

Obstacle 1: We had to pack all the dog's stuff

This wasn't as much of a pain as I thought it would be, honestly. I mean, we did take his bed, his food, his bowls, and two leashes, but it wasn't that much. At home, his food is conveniently stored in a medium plastic bin, so it was pretty easy to pick up and take, and we were able to fit his leashes in there as well.

a dog on the road - intro

So, I mentioned in a previous post that we decided to take Grizzly with us on our road trip to IL. This meant 3 big obstacles.

1. We had to pack all the dog's stuff.

    

2. We needed to figure out how to keep him contained in the car.

3. Grizzly needed to behave in a hotel room

To keep this from being the longest post ever, I'll write about each big thing separately over the next few days. :)

trip to IL

 One of the things that's a real bummer about living far away from our families is that we don't get to see them very often due to the 1000 miles in between us. The other bummer is that when we do go visit, the prep work can be kind of a pain!

I am the over-planning type, so I like to make lists and pre-pack everything that I can. We will be in Illinois for nine days...that's a lot of packing!

I have posted before about how I want to get away from wearing jeans and t-shirts everyday, so that makes packing to go anywhere a little harder. I can't just throw nine t-shirts in my bag and call that good!!

The weather in Illinois is also completely different than it is here...hot and humid in the summer...all the time.

To add another element to the packing - I have the ability to work remotely, so I will be doing that the first couple days we are in Illinois, to minimize the amount of vacation days I have to take. This means I have to bring my laptop, as well as a couple other things I need to be able to work remotely.

We have also decided to take Grizzly with us to IL, so we'll have to make sure we pack everything he needs!

On a lighter note, I can't wait to see my family! I haven't seen a lot of them since August!