July 1st 2009 8:58 am
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A strange rustling noise woke me from my nap in the bright sunshine on the lounge chair in the back yard. Squinting to see what could be making such a curious noise, I saw the junipers that made up my Secret Hideaway moving erratically about. I jumped up and raced over, ready for action.
“Whoa!” Tim squeaked. “Star, you very nearly scared something right out of me!”
“Tim, you could have been seriously hurt!” I sat down in the shade. “My heart is still racing!”
“You think Your heart is still racing,” Tim laughed. “Mine is still in my throat! Look, the fur on my butt is still up!”
We both laughed. “So, what are you doing here in my Secret Hideaway, Tim?”
“Well, I was just poking around. I thought I smelled something interesting in here, and since you were dead to the world, I figured you wouldn’t mind.”
I nosed him. “I never mind, if it’s you, Tim.”
We lay down together in the hole I’d dug in the shade of the big juniper and looked out into the yard, secure in the knowledge that nobody could see us. I never understood why Mom likes to climb trees before I had my Secret Hideaway, but after she told me it was fun to see people walk underneath with no clue she was up there, it made sense. That’s the way I feel in my Secret Hideaway. Safe, secure and best of all, Secret.
“So, Tim, what do you want to do this weekend?” I asked.
Tim cocked his head to one side and Thought Wrinkles puckered his little forehead. He looked over at me. “I think a picnic would be lots of fun. Maybe at Branched Oak or something.” He grinned. “What about you, Star? What would you like to do?”
I got up and stretched. “Sounds like lots of fun to me! How about we go inside and ask Winnie what she thinks?”
As we emerged from the Secret Hideaway, we scared Winnie, who was just passing by on her way to the bathroom. She jumped back and swore like a sailor.
“Don’t DO that to me, you guys!” She sounded a bit breathless. “You could have given me a heart attack or something!” We both laughed.
“Hey, Winnie, we were just discussing what we want to do this weekend. What would you like to do?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Wait here, I’ll just be a minute.” She disappeared back behind the Big Piney, and a moment later came back out. “There. Much better.” She grinned. “You know, if you aren’t careful, you could scare something right out of me jumping out of your Secret Hideaway like that - especially with me on the way to the bathroom!” We all laughed as we headed for the dog door.
“What did you guys want to do this weekend?” Winnie asked, once we’d all gotten a little drink and Tim had grabbed a mouthful of crunchies to bring into the living room to snack on. I told her about Tim’s idea, and she nodded. “That sounds like fun, Tim. But maybe we could do something different. We always seem to go to Branched Oak.”
I thought for a moment. “How about the Prairie?”
Winnie shrugged. “Well, it has been a while since we’ve been there, true. But it’s still kind of a usual, ordinary thing to do.”
We all looked at each other, thinking.
“How about Mahoney Park - the one off the highway, you know - not the one at the end of Fremont Street?” Tim piped up.
“Now, that’s more like it!” Winnie declared. “We haven’t been there for years, Tim! What a splendid idea!”
Great! Now we have the idea - all we have to do is tell Mom!
Love,
Star.
June 30th 2009 9:22 am
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“I don’t see anything particularly scenic here.” Winnie stretched out her long neck and peered off to one side of the Dogmobile. Then we traded sides, so I could look out her side, and she could look out mine.
“I don’t either, Winnie.” I looked back at Tim, who was panting quietly in the shade of the Dogmobile. “Aren’t you going to come look, Tim?” He got up and stuck his head out of the back window, beside me, and under Winnie. Mom snapped a picture, then another one.
“Do you think she got my good side?” Winnie asked, anxiously.
“Of course, Winnie - you don’t have a bad side!” We both laughed.
We were stopped for lunch, on our way back home from visiting Sergei and Dani in Texas. Auntie Pam moved there in May, and Mom helped her. They kept our Mom for a whole week! Now we were getting to see what the whole thing was about. As far as I can tell, it was much ado about nothing.
“Well, now, that’s not quite true, Star,” Tim said, from the shady depths of the Dogmobile. There was the Dog Park, and the Army Diller, and the Ginger Kitty, and Atley’s folks, and Ray Roberts Lake, and the M.R. Houston Nature Trail, and how could you forget all that great barbecue???”
“I haven’t forgotten, Tim. I just don’t see why Mom had to be gone a whole week.” Mom opened the cooler, and three dog noses went on High Alert. She pulled out the little baggie with the Smoked Mozzarella String Cheese, and my drool started running. Next came the little box of cherry tomatoes. Mom could keep those, as far as I was concerned. Then she started fishing around in the water in the bottom of the cooler.
“I wish she wouldn’t do that,” I said. “That ice water sounds awfully good.” It was 114 degrees here at the Scenic Stop in Oklahoma. No shade, no trees. No scenery, either! The pavement burned Winnie’s feet when she got out to relieve herself, and I have to admit I was very glad to get my paws back into the relative comfort of the Dogmobile. Tim was the only one who didn’t seem to have paw problems on the hot pavement. “I have Teflon Toes, you know,” he commented. “It’s a special Terrier thing.” Winnie and I glanced at each other and grinned. “Yet another Terrier Trait.”
Mom finally fished out a package of thin sliced turkey. “Ah,” she said. “Mwahhh,” we agreed. Mom just stood there behind the Dogmobile in the hot sun and ate her lunch, sharing the cheese and the turkey with us. It worked just fine for us - we liked being in the shade. It worked just fine for Mom - she was chilled to the bone from keeping the inside of the Dogmobile cool for us. Mom’s method for judging how cool to keep the air conditioning is this: if she sees us panting, it’s too hot. Simple, easy, and pretty cool. Literally.
After that, it was back on the road for us. We drove and drove, for hours and hours. Mom made sure we got to stop for regular bathroom breaks, but we didn’t stop for anything else. When we finally pulled into our driveway, the sun was going down. We were sure glad to see our own front yard! I think we slept for the next two days!
But now, I’m ready. I’m a well-seasoned traveling dog.
Where are we going next, Mom?
Love,
Star.
June 29th 2009 6:48 am
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We got up real early again the next day. It was Monday, and the day we left Auntie Pam’s to go back home.
“I’m not sure Mom slept much at all that night,” Winnie said, from the couch. “She woke me up a couple of times.”
“I think its because she didn’t have much room on the bed,” Tim observed. “You slept up there with us that night - remember? Before that, it was just Star and me, and you slept on your new Fluffy Bed on the floor.”
Winnie nodded. “I’ll bet you’re right, Tim.”
Anyway, back to my story. Once again, we knew something was happening - Mom was bustling in and out of the apartment, taking things out and stashing them in the Dogmobile. When the cooler went, we knew we were headed home. There were hugs all around, and we all piled into the Dogmobile.
“I’ll just turn right onto Highway 10, and then left on 180,” Mom said. “That sounds right, don’t you think?” Auntie Pam agreed.
They were both wrong.
Mom was more than half-way to Dallas when she finally figured out we were going the wrong way. She took an exit (did I mention this was the morning rush hour?), parked in the lot of a store that wasn’t open yet, and pulled out her little red folder with Google Map directions in it. Why she hadn’t looked in that to begin with, I have absolutely no idea.
“Well, don’t you remember, Star, that the Google directions on the way in would have taken Mom way past the exit to get to Auntie Pam’s apartment?” Tim paused mid-gnaw on his rawhide. “I think Mom was trying to use a short-cut.”
Oh, right. Well, as is usually the case with short-cuts, this one cost us about an hour extra on the road. That really wasn’t a problem for us, because it’s so comfy in the Dogmobile, but I’m thinking Mom would have liked to be home an hour earlier than we got there!
After we were finally on the right track and in our traveling groove, Mom started thinking about Lakes again. See, on the way in to Texas, Mom had wanted to stop at Lake Murray, which is in Oklahoma. We ran out of time (probably because we had to stop and get Winnie a nice new fluffy bed). Mom was determined to reward our perfect visiting manners by taking us to a Lake for a run on the way back home. She had considered going to Ray Roberts Lake, but she just wasn’t sure - and Atley’s folks recommended Murray Lake over Ray Roberts Lake because they’d never heard of Ray Roberts before but they’d seen Murray Lake. Murray Lake was over an hour away when we saw the first sign for Ray Roberts Lake, so when the exit came up, Mom made her decision, and we exited the highway.
Our first glimpse of Ray Roberts Lake was just spectacular. We had no idea what to expect, but when we came around a slight curve and the trees parted, there was an expanse of blue, sparkling water that stretched all the way to the horizon! Mom was so happy, she shouted, “YIPPEEE!!” Everyone but Mom had their head hanging out a window, smelling all the good fishy smells when Mom pulled in to the first turnout. It was a parking lot for people who brought boats to go fishing. There were eight or more pickup trucks parked there, each with an empty boat trailer behind it, and no people at all. So, after she parked the Dogmobile in the shade of a nice big tree, Mom opened the back and just let us out! Wow! No leashes! Winnie and I ran and ran and ran, all over the parking lot, over by the dumpster, up around the bathroom and back again! We’d been cooped up or on a leash for four days, so we had some running to do!!
“Not me,” Tim said. “I had Smelling to do.”
It’s true. Lake Ray Roberts has the most wonderfully stinky dumpster I have ever smelled in my whole life. I turned to Tim. “What would you say it smelled, like, Tim? What was that smell, anyway?”
Tim sat up and considered. “Fish guts, I think. I’m pretty sure, anyway. If Mom hadn’t pulled me away, I probably could have found out for sure.” He laid back down and went back to his rawhide.
It’s like they made the whole place just for us, Fur-friends. It was doggy heaven! After Mom put Tim on his leash to get him away from the dumpster, I led everyone to the Lake itself, and then tested the water for them to be sure it was safe and cool.
“Right,” Tim said knowingly. “And here I thought you were showing off.”
Showing off or not, I ran and splashed and had a wonderful time playing in the water, while Winnie caught her breath and Tim tried to catch the little waves that were splashing up on the shore. Mom has lots of fun watching him do that - especially when he catches one.
“Okay, you can stop now,” Tim said around his rawhide. I winked at Winnie.
You should have seen Tim when he bit a wave and ended up with a mouthful of mud! He couldn’t get it dislodged from that space in his bottom jaw - you know, that space under your tongue? He had that filled up entirely with mud. He was pawing and pawing at his face, but it wouldn’t budge. Mom had to use one of her fingers to help dig it out!
Tim raised one eyebrow. “That was bad. Really bad. But I prevailed in the end - I pulled that one root clean out of the Lake!”
I hope Mom puts the pictures of Tim pulling the big root up on our Dogster pages so you can see them. She also got a picture of Tim digging at a rock. He was sure there was something under it, and Mom was just as certain that she didn’t want to know what was under it. By the time Mom wanted to leave (I never wanted to leave that place, and neither did Tim or Winnie), Tim was just about half mud.
While Tim was digging at the rock, we heard engine noise, and then we saw a boat pulling into the dock area. It was two young men, shirtless and brown as bears from fishing in the sun, and they had a pup with them in the boat! (I sure wish Mom would get me a boat). About then, Mom figured it was probably time for us to get back on the road, so after I dried myself off on the grassy bank, we all headed back to the car.
It was truly the highlight of the trip for me. I hope next time, we get to camp at Ray Roberts Lake on the way to Auntie Pam’s and on the way back, too!
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