Sister Adventure!

I apologize in advance for how many pictures of my dogs there are in this blog post. I've always made fun of people who do nothing but post pictures of their children on Facebook (oh my gosh! Look! Suzi scribbled a line! Tony poo-pooed in the toilet like a big boy!!) but then, halfway through this trip as I turned around to take my 187th picture of my dogs in the backseat (seriously), I realized I AM one of those people. But at least it's with dogs, not kids. And in my defense, when there are two people and two dogs locked in a car rolling through Texas, one runs out of things to take pictures of, and sometimes even think about.

"Are we going to the park?"

We are so excited!

Coming across interesting things was few and far between, and we made sure every last ounce of laughter and break time was squeezed out of every unusually large metal chicken, gourd painting shop, giant peach and "worlds largest cross." I was also able to start a great collection of scary Christian billboards. Some of the doomsday ones were really horrifying! Thanks a lot, Jesus.

Brookie jumping for joy after finding giant metal chickens!

I made Brooke stop every time there was potentially-still-alive road kill. In my imagination, we would find a skunk or a raccoon with a hurt paw and we would nurse it back to health and we would all be best friends and sing together, like Sleeping Beauty. After our seventeenth dead animal I'm pretty sure Brooke started slipping me kava root in the mornings instead of vitamin B so I would just pass out. Very rude, Brookie. Think about all the animals we could've saved. Jerk.

(I did not take any pictures of roadkill, sorry).

We left on a Saturday morning (well, maybe it was afternoon), and made it to Juarez by dinnertime (well, maybe it was El Paso, but Juarez sounds so much more hardcore). When we got to the hotel, Brooke was not feeling well (aka reading 50 Shades of Grey), and sent me out to find some wine. Lucky for us, the hotel was situated right on top of a rockin' night club. So, I walked in to the nightclub wearing my super-trendy pajamas and ordered two glasses of wine. Actually, I tried to order the bottle, but the bartender looked at me like I was crazy, held up a huge jug of wine and told me: "no." So then I just settled for 2 glasses. On my way back to the room I got lost and wandered through a Mexican wedding reception in the hotel lobby. The men were all in white tuxes and a majority of the women may have been strippers. My pajama pants and wine double-fisting were noticed immediately. Had I been in my right mind I would have responded to the cat-calls and tried to take their booze, but instead I put my head down, pretended not to hear, and spilled half our wine sprinting outta there. They laughed. I went back to our room and laughed about their outfits with Brooke. I win.

At around 2 am, Kima woke me up, whimpering as though she needed to go out. I got the dogs all leashed up and ready to go and took them downstairs. Guess what happens at 2 am in Juarez? The bars close. As my dogs were pooping, I had the privilege of being hit on by every passing hooptie. Cuidado, M.

(For M: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=hooptie)

The next few days were pretty uneventful. Texas is long and gross and boring (thatswhatshesaid?). We played a lot of gangsta rap. Kima fell in a ditch. Loki remained excited. Kima discovered she was terrified of construction. We prank-called our siblings. We told our mom we took a detour to Mexico and we would be staying there for awhile. She did not respond well. Brooke requested I use make-up and whitening strips for her wedding.* I did not respond well. At least she didn't ask me to get pec implants (Sorry Dil, that's gotta hurt, bro).

A terrified Kima crawled in our laps and watched with horror anytime there was construction.

Look ma! No hands!

We arrived in Mississippi to stay with M's parents around 4 pm on our third day of driving. It was glorious. We were all exhausted, hot, and sick of being flipped off because of my Planned Parenthood bumper-sticker. We played around the farm all day and drank wine and played games for the next 2 evenings.

Puppy Heaven

Our third evening on the farm Kima, the dog who is terrified of everything, ran away. After being out for about an hour, we came home to find Loki happily waiting for us, without his sidekick. We searched for several hours looking for the furry little beast, and finally someone saw her running through the neighbors' yard- away from us, because she was scared of her name being called. Thank god for technology. Someone called someone, who, in turn, found me and told me to go to the other side of the farm. We went to the other side of the farm and voila, there was my furry little petrified princess, running away. It only took her about 10 minutes until she realized the person chasing after her and calling her name was me, and she should come home. Once we finally got home, M's dad offered to make her into a pair of Ugg boots for me. I am still seriously contemplating this offer.

The next day we left the farm. As we stopped for our first pit stop, we noticed something under Loki's chin. It was a nice melange of blood and pus. While the fur was still there, something had happened to the skin around Loki's throat area, causing a pretty decent wound. We cleaned him up and tried to imagine the things that may have happened to the dogs the night before. We kept asking, hoping they would magically gain the ability to talk- if only for this important thing we needed to know. Was there an all-out brawl that Loki had fought in and Kima had run away from? Did aliens land near the pasture and get fought off by Loki while Kima ran away? Did Loki have a gnarly encounter with a prostitute that ended badly- while Kima ran away? (Notice that Kima is a jerk in every one of these scenarios and this will be taken into account for the Ugg boot decision). Until we can actually get one of those dog-talking-collar-devices from Up, we may never know what happened that night. Except fleas. We know both dogs got fleas that night. Hence, my money's on the prostitute.

My broken, exhausted dogs.

Two days later we arrived in Nags Head, North Carolina. We got there right at sunset and frolicked around in the ocean for the few remaining daylight minutes. Loki was overjoyed. Kima was seriously perplexed. It is a giant, salty, moving bath- should I be terrified or excited? Loki's enthusiasm eventually overshadowed Kima's fears, and soon we were all running and jumping and rolling around in the sand.

Unbeknownst to me, M had left DC several hours earlier than we had planned to surprise me and meet us in Nags Head when we arrived. Unfortunately, several other husbands must've had that same idea, because what should have been a 5-hour trip turned into a 10-hour traffic bonanza. In the meantime, Brooke and I unpacked the car, stripped the blood-splattered comforters from our seedy motel beds (seriously), and settled in.

M walked in the room around 10 pm. The dogs hadn't seen him in almost 4 months. Loki went crazy immediately. Kima was taken aback for a moment before realizing who had just walked through the door. Upon her realization she flung herself across the room and repeatedly tried to throw herself in M's arms while crying loud enough to wake the neighbors. It was the most adorable thing ever.

Beach frolicking with dad!

The next day we walked out to the beach and hung out for awhile. The weather was horrible and the wind whipped the sand into our eyes and our faces, but we had come to play on the beach and so we stayed- as long as we could. After about 30 minutes we gave in and headed to the pool. At the pool we met a bunch of other people in the same situation, so we played in the pool the rest of the day with them. Since the hotel was so seedy, we felt perfectly comfortable bringing in the dogs and letting them play in the pool as well. We got hepatitis and they got dog hair and fleas in their pool filters. Even Stevens.

Hey look! We're at the pool... while visiting the beach...

 On Sunday we grudgingly loaded up our car for one last day of driving. As is the going trend, the trip from Nags Head to DC, which should've taken us about 5 or 6 hours, took closer to 8. We arrived home Sunday night, happy, exhausted, and prepared for a busy week of moving in, de-fleaing our dogs (and our car) and teaching the dogs to "hold it" for hours on end.

For another great blog about a road trip and two dogs, one simple and one scared, look here: http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/11/dogs-dont-understand-basic-concepts.html

*Disclaimer: While Brooke is totally a bridezilla, in reality she looked at me and said, "For my wedding could you please buy some make-up and whitening strips... and bring them to me in Costa Rica." I just thought maybe it was a little too long of a pause...