Jake and Just Harry's Most Excellent Christmas Road Trip: Day One

Finally, our secretary got around to downloading the gazillion photos from our road trip and copying my notes. Finally!! It's really hard to get good help these days -- especially when they have had several weeks of unaccustomed vacation, good fellowship, delicious food, and lots of wine...

To start off with, we thought we'd answer that burning question: did you guys really meet Gussie and Teka and did you or did you not share a bark with the whippets??? Yes. And yes. But you'll have to wait for the proof (unless you've peaked at Gussie's blog or at the whippets' waggle).

On the way out of town on Day One, I rode shotgun so I could give Dogdad directions...

And JH took turns from time to time.

That first day of our trip took us across Alligator Alley, which traverses the Everglades, to Bradenton on Florida's west coast.

Along the way, we stopped at our very first rest area, one of many, where we were excited to find a dog walk and lots of places to sniff and do our business.

Because Mom and Dogdad had a presentation to give at Port Manatee on Day Two, and had to stop by that first afternoon, they arranged for me and JH to stay a few hours with a very cool lady named Rocky who has a K-9 training facility just a mile down from the port. We discovered lots of C. A. T. s there, but they were so used to having dogs run around, they barely paid us any mind. We, of course, were not so blase.

That evening, Mom and Dogdad found a friendly Italian restaurant in Bradenton that allows dogs to eat on the patio. The patio was surrounded by a short marble wall, so JH and I had a wonderful time exploring and watching for new customers.

That evening we stayed in a very very very low budget motel because it was the only one in proximity to the port that allowed dogs. Clean sheets, but only a sliver of soap, one of three light bulbs that worked, no remote! Mom was proud of us though 'cause we didn't bark once and got down to business right away and, all in all, seemed OK with being some place new.

And that was Day One. Just so you know what to expect from the rest our story, our fourteen-day (actually fifteen days from start to finish) trip took us from Florida to Alabama to Mississippi to Arkansas to Tennessee to Missouri to Kentucky to Alabama to Georgia and back to Florida. We covered about 2,800 miles from start to finish -- taking back roads as well as interstates.

The temperatures along the way went from our 70s in Florida to 50s in Alabama to 40s, 30s, 20s, and all the way down to 7 in Missouri. And the landscape changed dramatically from place to place to place, going from green to brown to gray and back to green when we hit southern Georgia.

So stay tuned for the next episode of our most excellent Christmas road trip!!!

Your pal,

Jake