A while ago I decided it would be fun to go to the AKC Agility National Championships. It was the last weekend in March and was to be held in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I did not want to fly due to the logistics of flying with 2 dogs, and I also knew Fancy would not appreciate flying in a crate by herself. Somehow I didn't think the airline would believe me if I told them the dogs wanted to share a crate.
Therefore I decided to drive and I was lucky that ffluffy decided to come with us. It would have turned out to be a boring trip without her.
We left on Tuesday March 23rd. Second day of Spring Break which is significant because that meant ffluffy was off work. I took leave.
I took my laptop with the intention of blogging on the road, but I was so tired each night I went straight to bed after feeding the dogs. Driving is tiring!
Day 1
I got up around 5 am to have enough time to load the car and make it to ffluffy's by 8. I made good time and got there early, which is pretty unusual for me. We were taking my car and were going to have 2 people, 7 dogs, and cargo in my Buick Rendezvous. I thought it would be helpful to bring my luggage rack which is usually used for Pie's wagon. We wisely brought a tarp to help keep the luggage together and keep it dry, but it took us some time to decide how to best use the rope to keep the burrito tied up. After tying it up, we realized it looked more like a concealed body than a burrito. After even further consideration we realized it would be quite a pain to tie and untie it each day. I realized we could cram everything inside the car and decided to leave the body behind. But first, we had to document it...
We left ffluffy's place around 10 (it took us a while to deal with the body and rearrangement of the luggage.) The Nationals didn't start until Friday, but we took plenty of time to get there because we planned to stop along the way and see roadside attractions. We had a print out from a website (something like Roadsideattractions.com) with all our planned stops. The first one was in AZ.
AZ had a nice welcome sign. Some states were too cheap to welcome us. I won't be moving to those states any time soon.
The Colorado River on the CA/ AZ border.
Our first attraction was the "Golfball House." These were lesser attractions at the main attraction.
I think this should have told us something about the reliability of our website. The Golfball House is not actually called the Golfball House anywhere except the website. The current owners call it the UFO House (as seen by their house guest) and it was originally called a geodesic dome.
It is not open to the public but there is a small gift shop with travel type items and some super cheezy plastic aliens to purchase. I could not imagine living here, having to walk up all those stairs each day. They need an elevator.
Looking in one of the windows. The ceiling has fallen off.
This bathtub needs some serious cleaning. And what is with the shower curtain? Its somewhat modern appearance ruins the mood.
ffluffy thinks there is asbestos, cocidia, mange, and toxic fumes in abandoned motels.
I think I want to know what causes a lampshade to unravel. Anyone have any idea the decade this motel was last inhabited?
You know a building is truly abandoned when there is a tumbleweed in the bathroom.
Well.... mostly cool. Anyone can slap a plaque on the wall at a certain level. We thought we could stand on 3333.33 feat above sea level. Not so much. Why didn't they move the plaque up a little bit and put it at 3333.333333333 feet?
Ffluffy does her best to reach 3333.33 feet.
Feeling slightly deflated we pressed on into New Mexico and we made it to Gallup and stopped there for the night.
The next morning I took pictures to show how we had the car set up. The cooler does not hold yummy human snacks as you might expect but raw dog food.
Bob the Border Collie on the bottom and Hunda the Swedish Vallhund on top. The wire crate had so many bungees holding it in place we could roll down a hill and into a river and go over a water fall and we might not survive, but that crate was not budging. My clothes bag (and miscellaneous dog supplies) is shoved in front of Dottie's crate next to Bob. There are some smaller bags behind the driver's seat and Bob's crate.
Pickle the Border Collie rode loose on the other side of the stacked crates, Fancy and Pie were in the crate by the black bag and Moose the corgi rode up front with ffluffy.
Dottie says, "Let me out! Road trips are boring!"
Pie and Fancy say, "We ride together all the time, and don't mind, but we like to look miserable in pictures so people feel bad for us."
After taking pictures we headed out of Gallup. I spotted another decrepit motel. This one did have a fence and its story was more clear. It had been destroyed by a fire.
Some pretty scenery in New Mexico.
I was rewarded with a picture taking opportunity. Pie was rewarded with an opportunity to sit in the cold snow. You can see her feet are cold. After I released her when our last picture was done she ran to the car, beating me, and whined at the door, asking to get back in. Wimpy California dog! It was very cold.. so I must be a wimpy CA girl.
Brrr...
We ate at the Hurricane Cafe because it was recommended to have very good green chili. I am not a fan of chili of any color so I had the chicken fingers which were quite tasty. Unfortunately the green chili did not quite meat ffluffy's standards. However, the stop was not a total loss because right down the street was another attraction on our list. The Giant Red Arrow.
And the verdict is.... another thumbs down. It was in the middle of a parking lot! And, it wasn't even that giant. ffluffy renamed it the red giant arrow to illustrate its lack of giantness.
The dogs greatly added to its prestige. It had not plaque or explanation telling us why it was there. The website also had no info for us, other than it is a Giant Red Arrow. I had hoped for an informative plaque. I always like reading those.
K Mart, anyone?
Pickle demonstrates his well placed disdain.
Pushing on through New Mexico it began to snow again. Visibly decreased rapidly, snow was sticking to the road and people who were driving too fast began to slide off the road, including a car carrier who we saw being winched out of the median by a very large truck.
On a food stop the snow was really coming down. Dottie was not pleased. I tried to get a picture of the snow falling on her muzzle but it wasn't turning out and I was too cold to keep trying.
So cold. Isn't this supposed to be Spring Break?
Moose cuddled up on the front seat with the pillow and ffluffy. He slept most of the way.
Good riddance New Mexico and your cold snow!
Texas also had a nice welcome sign. I hoped their weather would be as friendly as their driving.
We were very excited to see our next attraction, the Giant Pair of Legs, also known as the gpol, which has somehow become my nickname, so don't be too confused if you ever hear someone calling me that. The website calls these a Huge Pair of Legs, but not only does that not show the proper respect for their giantness, but gpol sounds better than hpol.
ffluffy with the gpol. Once again it was freezing. We had big plans for all kinds of poses, and pictures with the dogs and the gpol, but the wind was bitter, cutting, bone chilling cold, and to stay outside for more than a few seconds was to invite certain death, so all of our big plans had to be abandoned.
Me and the gpol. I want to know how you can have tube socks AND toenails. Seems questionable to me.
Moose is worse than Fancy when it comes to stealing food. ( A trait she learned from Bloom, I think.) First time he waited until we had left the car, second time until the door had closed, then he progressed to snatching things as soon as we turned the engine off. Maybe we should have been snacking less. Or maybe not. What else is there to do when sitting in a car all day? Apparently Moose agrees with us.
More snow and Dottie thought it was not fun.
The 2 good girls. The flash makes it look pleasant. But don't be fooled. It was snowing and miserable. I have come to the conclusion that the beautiful weather in CA truly does balance the high prices, horrible traffic, taxes, over crowding, lack of affordable housing and tiny yards.
Fancy and the Buick covered with snow for the first time in its existence in Amarillo, TX. We slept in and waited for the roads to deice in the morning sun.
Yet another attraction not on our list. We spotted a sign that claimed this was the World's Largest Cross. Needing to make up time and feeling we could see all from the car as we could see if we pulled over we pressed on and took a picture from the car. On the way back I noticed the sign says it is the World's Largest Cross in the Western Hemisphere. Another gyp! For all I know it is the World's Largest Cross in Texas. It can't be the World's Largest Cross unless it is the Largest one IN THE WORLD. Not, "In the Western Hemisphere." Now I'm glad we didn't stop.
OK is too cheap (or too unfriendly) to have a welcome sign, so we had to settle for this one.
Therefore I decided to drive and I was lucky that ffluffy decided to come with us. It would have turned out to be a boring trip without her.
We left on Tuesday March 23rd. Second day of Spring Break which is significant because that meant ffluffy was off work. I took leave.
I took my laptop with the intention of blogging on the road, but I was so tired each night I went straight to bed after feeding the dogs. Driving is tiring!
Day 1
I got up around 5 am to have enough time to load the car and make it to ffluffy's by 8. I made good time and got there early, which is pretty unusual for me. We were taking my car and were going to have 2 people, 7 dogs, and cargo in my Buick Rendezvous. I thought it would be helpful to bring my luggage rack which is usually used for Pie's wagon. We wisely brought a tarp to help keep the luggage together and keep it dry, but it took us some time to decide how to best use the rope to keep the burrito tied up. After tying it up, we realized it looked more like a concealed body than a burrito. After even further consideration we realized it would be quite a pain to tie and untie it each day. I realized we could cram everything inside the car and decided to leave the body behind. But first, we had to document it...
We left ffluffy's place around 10 (it took us a while to deal with the body and rearrangement of the luggage.) The Nationals didn't start until Friday, but we took plenty of time to get there because we planned to stop along the way and see roadside attractions. We had a print out from a website (something like Roadsideattractions.com) with all our planned stops. The first one was in AZ.
AZ had a nice welcome sign. Some states were too cheap to welcome us. I won't be moving to those states any time soon.
The Colorado River on the CA/ AZ border.
Our first attraction was the "Golfball House." These were lesser attractions at the main attraction.
I think this should have told us something about the reliability of our website. The Golfball House is not actually called the Golfball House anywhere except the website. The current owners call it the UFO House (as seen by their house guest) and it was originally called a geodesic dome.
It is not open to the public but there is a small gift shop with travel type items and some super cheezy plastic aliens to purchase. I could not imagine living here, having to walk up all those stairs each day. They need an elevator.
Just down the road was an attraction not on the website, but since I was the driver, I pulled over and we checked it out. An abandoned motel! I think abandoned buildings are pretty neat. Why are they abandoned? Who used to own them? In the case of motels (there used to be quite a few between the 14 and Victorville on that road that connects the two) what where the people doing who stopped at them when they were open? Usually there is a fence up or they are boarded up. However, that has always been secondary to the fact that I've never been the driver and passed one when I had time to stop. So I was not going to let this opportunity pass me by.
No fence. No boards. Very abandoned. The office is on the left.
Looking in one of the windows. The ceiling has fallen off.
This bathtub needs some serious cleaning. And what is with the shower curtain? Its somewhat modern appearance ruins the mood.
ffluffy thinks there is asbestos, cocidia, mange, and toxic fumes in abandoned motels.
I think I want to know what causes a lampshade to unravel. Anyone have any idea the decade this motel was last inhabited?
You know a building is truly abandoned when there is a tumbleweed in the bathroom.
After leaving the motel (which I thought was fascinating from a historical "we'll never know what it used to be like and the life stories of the owners and workers and patrons" point of view but ffluffy just thought was extra creepy) we were back on track on our list of attractions. Next up: a point in AZ 3333.33 feet above sea level. Very cool, we thought.
Well.... mostly cool. Anyone can slap a plaque on the wall at a certain level. We thought we could stand on 3333.33 feat above sea level. Not so much. Why didn't they move the plaque up a little bit and put it at 3333.333333333 feet?
Ffluffy does her best to reach 3333.33 feet.
Feeling slightly deflated we pressed on into New Mexico and we made it to Gallup and stopped there for the night.
Day 2
The next morning I took pictures to show how we had the car set up. The cooler does not hold yummy human snacks as you might expect but raw dog food.
Bob the Border Collie on the bottom and Hunda the Swedish Vallhund on top. The wire crate had so many bungees holding it in place we could roll down a hill and into a river and go over a water fall and we might not survive, but that crate was not budging. My clothes bag (and miscellaneous dog supplies) is shoved in front of Dottie's crate next to Bob. There are some smaller bags behind the driver's seat and Bob's crate.
Pickle the Border Collie rode loose on the other side of the stacked crates, Fancy and Pie were in the crate by the black bag and Moose the corgi rode up front with ffluffy.
Dottie says, "Let me out! Road trips are boring!"
Pie and Fancy say, "We ride together all the time, and don't mind, but we like to look miserable in pictures so people feel bad for us."
After taking pictures we headed out of Gallup. I spotted another decrepit motel. This one did have a fence and its story was more clear. It had been destroyed by a fire.
Some pretty scenery in New Mexico.
As we continued on in New Mexico and climbed in elevation I was disturbed to find it began to snow on us! I've never driven in the snow before but luckily it did not seem to be sticking on the freeway.
I spotted a sign on the side of the road saying "Exit here for the Continental Divide." That sounded promising so I pulled off.
I was rewarded with a picture taking opportunity. Pie was rewarded with an opportunity to sit in the cold snow. You can see her feet are cold. After I released her when our last picture was done she ran to the car, beating me, and whined at the door, asking to get back in. Wimpy California dog! It was very cold.. so I must be a wimpy CA girl.
Brrr...
We ate at the Hurricane Cafe because it was recommended to have very good green chili. I am not a fan of chili of any color so I had the chicken fingers which were quite tasty. Unfortunately the green chili did not quite meat ffluffy's standards. However, the stop was not a total loss because right down the street was another attraction on our list. The Giant Red Arrow.
And the verdict is.... another thumbs down. It was in the middle of a parking lot! And, it wasn't even that giant. ffluffy renamed it the red giant arrow to illustrate its lack of giantness.
The dogs greatly added to its prestige. It had not plaque or explanation telling us why it was there. The website also had no info for us, other than it is a Giant Red Arrow. I had hoped for an informative plaque. I always like reading those.
K Mart, anyone?
Pickle demonstrates his well placed disdain.
Pushing on through New Mexico it began to snow again. Visibly decreased rapidly, snow was sticking to the road and people who were driving too fast began to slide off the road, including a car carrier who we saw being winched out of the median by a very large truck.
On a food stop the snow was really coming down. Dottie was not pleased. I tried to get a picture of the snow falling on her muzzle but it wasn't turning out and I was too cold to keep trying.
So cold. Isn't this supposed to be Spring Break?
Moose cuddled up on the front seat with the pillow and ffluffy. He slept most of the way.
Good riddance New Mexico and your cold snow!
Texas also had a nice welcome sign. I hoped their weather would be as friendly as their driving.
We were very excited to see our next attraction, the Giant Pair of Legs, also known as the gpol, which has somehow become my nickname, so don't be too confused if you ever hear someone calling me that. The website calls these a Huge Pair of Legs, but not only does that not show the proper respect for their giantness, but gpol sounds better than hpol.
ffluffy with the gpol. Once again it was freezing. We had big plans for all kinds of poses, and pictures with the dogs and the gpol, but the wind was bitter, cutting, bone chilling cold, and to stay outside for more than a few seconds was to invite certain death, so all of our big plans had to be abandoned.
Me and the gpol. I want to know how you can have tube socks AND toenails. Seems questionable to me.
Moose is worse than Fancy when it comes to stealing food. ( A trait she learned from Bloom, I think.) First time he waited until we had left the car, second time until the door had closed, then he progressed to snatching things as soon as we turned the engine off. Maybe we should have been snacking less. Or maybe not. What else is there to do when sitting in a car all day? Apparently Moose agrees with us.
Another attraction we happened across was the Quarter Horse Museum. It was closed for the night and also possibly closed for remodeling, but we still could take pictures. My favorite! The horse is Refrigerator. I don't follow QH racing, so I don't know anything about him. But it is a neat statue.
More snow and Dottie thought it was not fun.
The 2 good girls. The flash makes it look pleasant. But don't be fooled. It was snowing and miserable. I have come to the conclusion that the beautiful weather in CA truly does balance the high prices, horrible traffic, taxes, over crowding, lack of affordable housing and tiny yards.
Day 3
The snow continued to come down all night. This is what my car looked like the next morning.
Fancy and the Buick covered with snow for the first time in its existence in Amarillo, TX. We slept in and waited for the roads to deice in the morning sun.
Yet another attraction not on our list. We spotted a sign that claimed this was the World's Largest Cross. Needing to make up time and feeling we could see all from the car as we could see if we pulled over we pressed on and took a picture from the car. On the way back I noticed the sign says it is the World's Largest Cross in the Western Hemisphere. Another gyp! For all I know it is the World's Largest Cross in Texas. It can't be the World's Largest Cross unless it is the Largest one IN THE WORLD. Not, "In the Western Hemisphere." Now I'm glad we didn't stop.
We knew we were getting close to Oklahoma because the mile markers were close to zero. Then we passed zero and were in OK! But where was the welcome sign? I spotted a large blue sign coming up and instructed ffluffy to take a picture. After we passed the sign I was chagrined to see it was not an Oklahoma sign at all.
OK is too cheap (or too unfriendly) to have a welcome sign, so we had to settle for this one.
Our final stop was outside of Oklahoma City. We couldn't decide if we should go or not because it was getting late on Thursday and we wanted to make it to Tulsa by 6 pm to check in to the show so we didn't have to check in on the first day. I made the command decision that we would see the last attraction, the World's Largest Mound. We did not know what the World's Largest Mound might be, but the description on the website said it had walkways for mound appreciation.
The website mislead us one more time because the World's Largest Mound was not open yet.
It is in conjunction with the Native American Cultural Center which is still under construction. You can see the mound to the right of the building and to the right of that is OK City.
ffluffy and Moose with the Mound in the background.
We pushed on towards Tulsa but took a rest stop and came across a funny sign.
We made Tulsa by about 4 pm, checked into the show, checked into our hotel and got settled in.
Our crating area. It is on dirt in a livestock area and you can tell by the smell. We took the crates back to the hotel each night to crate some of the dogs for the night and we took the smell with us too. I don't mind the smell of livestock, but I don't want it in my hotel room!
Another exciting shot of the crating area.
This is ring four and the bleachers and crating.
The warm up areas.
The main rings.
Fancy and I at the big sign. Kisses.
Running around the Mojave did make them happy.
Pie in the lead, with Dottie and Fancy neck and neck and Pickle bringing up the rear.
Prancing Pants paces the parched place.
Hunda! Do do do!
Puppy and Pickle.
Pie is so happy to run.
Some nice scenery.
Moose had a roll in the dirt and looked extra cute with all four legs in the air, but I was too slow and only got a picture of him shaking off afterward.
Moose is no slouch when it comes to running. Even if he is a little elderly.
Free of the stupid box at last! I run, and run, and run, and run, and run some more! Because I'm a puuppppyyyy!
Hunda and Bob who is the same age as Dottie.
Dottie found a stick. (How surprising, I comment sarcastically.)
Bob is very handsome.
Fancy became a victim of the jumping cholla cactus. ffluffy knew what to do and I held Fancy as she removed the cactus and huge spines with sticks used like chopsticks. I've never seen these before but not too long ago I saw a video on how they jump out and get you even if you don't touch them.
A propane truck came by on our seeming deserted road and the dogs had to do a down as it passed. Dottie held onto her stick.
The pack exploded out of their down after we released them when the truck had gone. Pickle is the fastest of the group and would be in the front but ffluffy was trying to keep him low key to keep his injury from getting worse.
It is in conjunction with the Native American Cultural Center which is still under construction. You can see the mound to the right of the building and to the right of that is OK City.
Reading on Wikipedia, I learned mounds are structures built in the Americans by ancient native people, not the "modern" Native Americans. They are spread though out the US and I'm thinking they are going to plant grass on this one and it will be a recreation of an Indian Mound. We wanted to walk on it and appreciate its moundess, but since it was not open we were not afforded the opportunity. The website was our nemesis once again.
ffluffy and Moose with the Mound in the background.
We pushed on towards Tulsa but took a rest stop and came across a funny sign.
We made Tulsa by about 4 pm, checked into the show, checked into our hotel and got settled in.
Day 4
The first day at the Nationals is the State Tournament. All the scores from each state are averaged together and the state with the highest score wins. CA won this year! A lot of people (myself included) use the State Tournament as practice since it has no bearing on the final standings. The courses are per ISC (can't remember what that stands for) rules and they are not like normal American courses. Fancy had an off course in one run but was clear in the other. I ran Pie in 26 inches because that is her international jump height. She had two clean runs but when I checked her scores the next day she showed an NQ on one run. My friends had watched and said we were clean so I'm not sure what happened with that.
Our crating area. It is on dirt in a livestock area and you can tell by the smell. We took the crates back to the hotel each night to crate some of the dogs for the night and we took the smell with us too. I don't mind the smell of livestock, but I don't want it in my hotel room!
Day 5
Day 5 started the actual Agility Championship. I am sorry to report that ffuffy's dog Pickle got hurt before his second run and only got to run once. Not only did ffluffy go all that way and couldn't compete, but her dog was also in pain and won't be able to run agility any more. Not a very happy show.
Fancy had 2 clean runs today. Pie ran clean in her first run and was in 11th place out of about 80 dogs. Not bad! Then in her second run she had an off course. The results show 2 faults so I think she must have passed the plane of the correct jump after taking the off course jump. That put us pretty far down in the standings.
Day 6
Fancy had another clear run and finished 38th out of about 270 dogs. She competed against mostly Border Collies who are much faster then she could ever be. We were consistent which helped us beat the dogs with mistakes, but we can't come close to the speed of the BCs.
Pie had a great final run and was very fast with one bar down. That gave us three total faults which put us right in the middle of the 24 inch class, about 43 out of 80.
Another exciting shot of the crating area.
This is ring four and the bleachers and crating.
The warm up areas.
The main rings.
Fancy and I at the big sign. Kisses.
Since we had no reason to stick around we were ready to go by 1o. We loaded up the car and were ready to go. Too bad the battery was dead and we were stuck in Tulsa. I got Security to give us a jump and we made good our escape. Since no stores were open on a Sunday in the Midwest we drove as far as we could before we had to get more gas. I was on tender hooks when I turned the car back on after filling up but it started no problem.
I drove until around 10 that night and was too tired to go on so fluffy took over. She drove until about 2. We decided to save money and park on the side of the road rather than get a hotel. That is legal in AZ, which is where driving 16 hrs straight from Tulsa (plus time changes) will get you. Upon reflection, this was not a great idea. It was freezing. I had taken my shoes off to get more comfy, and the floor was too cold to put my feet on. I had to prop them up on my purse. Plus, after napping about 2 hours, I was awoken due to having difficulty breathing. Apparently my car is fairly airtight and 2 people and 7 dogs depleted the available oxygen supply. I wafted the door open and closed but the cold now made sleeping impossible, so we pressed on. I have a hazy memory of ffluffy singing along to the Greenday song about 1 and 21 Guns. The sun began to rise on Monday morning and we were back in California! I took over driving around 6 am and it was now
Day 7
That was a lot of driving. I spotted a likely looking road in the Mojave and we pulled off to let the dogs run around. Being cooped up for 7 days did not make them happy.
Running around the Mojave did make them happy.
Pie in the lead, with Dottie and Fancy neck and neck and Pickle bringing up the rear.
Prancing Pants paces the parched place.
Hunda! Do do do!
Puppy and Pickle.
Pie is so happy to run.
Some nice scenery.
Moose had a roll in the dirt and looked extra cute with all four legs in the air, but I was too slow and only got a picture of him shaking off afterward.
Moose is no slouch when it comes to running. Even if he is a little elderly.
Free of the stupid box at last! I run, and run, and run, and run, and run some more! Because I'm a puuppppyyyy!
Hunda and Bob who is the same age as Dottie.
Dottie found a stick. (How surprising, I comment sarcastically.)
Bob is very handsome.
Fancy became a victim of the jumping cholla cactus. ffluffy knew what to do and I held Fancy as she removed the cactus and huge spines with sticks used like chopsticks. I've never seen these before but not too long ago I saw a video on how they jump out and get you even if you don't touch them.
A propane truck came by on our seeming deserted road and the dogs had to do a down as it passed. Dottie held onto her stick.
The pack exploded out of their down after we released them when the truck had gone. Pickle is the fastest of the group and would be in the front but ffluffy was trying to keep him low key to keep his injury from getting worse.
A pretty desert flower.
More Mojave scenery.
A typical rust heap found in the desert. I always wonder how it got there. And in this case, why is it so twisted up?
Dottie pulled this root type thing up out of the ground and paraded around with it.
Dottie thinks maybe this trip wasn't a complete waste after all. She got a cool root type thing out of the deal!
After a short walk we got back in the car and finished the drive home, arriving at ffluffy's house at about noon, 26 hours (including time changes) after we left Oklahoma. A record, for sure. This allowed ffluffy to go back to work on Tuesday, since Spring Break was over. I wasn't scheduled to go back to work until Wednesday. I considered going in early... but that day I went to bed at 3 pm and slept until 10 the next day. I guess that answered the question of going into work for me. ffluffy must be an Amazon or something because not only did she go to work on Tuesday, but she also went to dog class Monday night. Crazy!
I think I've finally recovered... but the reason this blog is so late coming is I've been going to bed early each night and this is the first time I've stayed up to blog.
I had a good time on our trip. Sight seeing is always fun. It was a good experience to go to a big show. Of course I wish poor Pickle hadn't been injured and ffluffy would have been able to run him (and win- because they are that good.) It was a cool trip but I will not be taking another long road trip for a dog show for some time. And hopefully no marathon drives for even longer.
