Flight by Night

Yesterday was crazy folks - the reason for no blog entry for yesterday. Yesterday, Konrad and I plus the hounds blew through Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, and most of Ohio! What a trip! We were planted in the car for over 15 hours! When we first departed Iowa, we were still in white out conditions, but at least the sun was trying to blare through the whiteouts to guide us on our way. I do have an interesting dog turd story but if it grosses you out or anything, you should probably skip to Paragraph 3!

P2 - The dog turd story. The winds in Iowa were 40 mph first thing in the morning and the temperature was a frightful 14 degrees. Rudi, the littlest cockapoo, took a poop right in the wind and as he was pooping - the wind ripped the turd right out of his little behind. Well, you can imagine his surprise when he realized he was in the middle of the "action" but it was gone when he looked back there. The wind had taken it and rolled it across the yard before he could even determine if what he was starting to leave was really there. It was hysterical! The woman in Wyoming had told me cars were blowing right off the road, and then this was confirmed by Konrad and I firsthand in Iowa. And, now we can honestly confirm that when a dog poops into 40 mph winds, turds will also fly. Fortunately, I was NOT standing in the same wind!

P3 - So we booked through Iowa on very treacherous roads. We counted 110 cars in ditches and wrecks along the way until we crossed the border to Illinois. There was really nothing to see in Illinois - the roads were icy and packed full of cars. We saw a few cars in ditches there as well indicating we must have just missed the worst of their storm. We continued to share driving until crossing into Indiana in which there is also a lot of nothing to see. Just miles and miles of nothing. Everything was going fine until there was a multi car pileup on the highway we were driving into Columbus Ohio. So, we were forced to take a detour a few miles out of our way and work our way back to the highway. This is where truckers come in handy folks. Wherever they go, follow them. They certainly know their way around. Then it was on to Ohio. I refused to stop driving until we reached Ohio. We just had to get this state under our belts. Once we reached Columbus, we both realized we were all just too tired to continue. So, we jumped off the highway somewhere around east of Columbus and spent 5 hours sleeping in a hotel room. Might we recommend a Red Roof Inn - they are quite doggie friendly :-)

This morning we were up bright and early and continued our journey through Ohio and across West Virginia and on into Pennsylvania. We crossed the PA border this morning at about 8:36 a.m. EST. I was so relieved. Seeing my dad for Christmas Eve was actually going to become a reality! At approximately 1:00 p.m. EST this afternoon, we arrived in front of my parents house! They were never so happy to see us!! My dad is thoroughly enjoying his lemons. I took some great pictures of him with the lemons which I will post later on. I am just too pooped to post right now. My dad definitely looks worse now than he did in September - probably due to the aggressive chemo treatments. His skin is yellow in appearance and he's lost a lot of weight. He also loses his breath easier. But, he told us he feels better this week than he has in a long time. I think he is just excited to have his family around him. If that is what it takes to lift his spirits, so be it. I love my dad and don't want him to go anywhere.

The dogs are settling into my parents house without issue. We've realized Rudi is quite a tough little bugger. He's resilient to snow, cold weather, and doesn't mind riding for long periods of time in a car at all. Our plan is to stay home until the 27th and we depart sometime on the 28th. We will head to Baltimore to meet up with my friends from there and then it's on to Charlotte, NC to revisit our old stomping grounds and visit some close friends we made while living there.

After that, it's Florida and then west back to Phoenix, stopping in New Orleans. Keep checking back - we will be posting some photos and blogging more as the week goes on. Merry Christmas to everyone!