It's been too long. No really. You have missed so much ridiculousness in the life of me!
I haven't forgotten you though- each and every time I've found myself in an "oh so blog worthy" situation, I have thought, "Jesus, I need to write about this."
Alas....
The pups, myself and my lovely gentleman have moved to Arlington, TX. Let's recap some of the highlights leading up to this.
This was our grand plan. Mark and I agreed to rent a 24' truck and pull the car on a trailer. Dogs will be drugged and in the cab with us. We will each take two (5) hours shifts. We will drive straight through without stopping. It sounds miserable but doable.
Here's the problems with this plan:
-24' trucks aren't available for one way
-Dogs won't fit in the cab
Ok. We're flexible. We're hip, we are young, we are embracing this move and rolling with the punches. So now I'll drive too. We'll put the pups in the car, we'll get a 20' and stack it to the ceiling. It's all good.
Right?
Morning of the pack (which, for reasons that will soon become clear, is referred to as 'Pack Number One'). About four feet in, the pad of my left pointer finger is violently separated from my finger. Seriously, it HURT. Tears were shed, an emergency room visit was threatened. Mark actually yelled at me at this point when I tried to clean the wound with the cleanest available rag, which was, well...not clean. But hey, we're young, we're working through this. I suck it up and we carry on. We pack that freaking truck. To the brim. And discover- there's no way we're fitting all the stuff. Not even close. We need a bigger truck.
(side rant here)
UHaul advertises "mom's attic=extra space" Trust me, that exact wording was written on the back of the truck I followed for 1,200 miles. Extra means additional right? So if you rent a 20' truck you assume it'll be 20' and that the mom's attic would be EXTRA space. This is untrue. Your 20' truck is actually about 16.5' long. So bear that in mind, and if there's ANY doubt, go bigger.
Alright, there's tears from me. Mark and I are exhausted. We've just spent 8 hours packing and the only solution seems to be unpacking everything, getting a bigger truck and doing it again. Here's when Demetrius comes into the plan. Essentially, I am an evil bitch to my best friend (he will attest to this), and somehow, he and two guys appear the next morning. We unload. We get a bigger truck, we re-load everything. It's a disaster and perfect at the same time.
At this point, the vet calls me back.
Kora is really bad on car rides. She's very hyper. She also has epilepsy.
The vet informs me that sedating her could trigger an episode. There's nothing to be done.
Mark and I are exhausted, every muscle aches, my finger still throbs. And I've just signed on to drive over a thousand miles with a completely lucid SAINT BERNARD and a BULL MASTIFF in the car. Likewise, Mark is piloting a very very heavy 26' truck. But we're optimistic and we recognize that arguing or dwelling on the facts isn't helping anything.
So we start driving. It should be mentioned that both dogs fit comfortably in the "puppy palace" that was created in the backseat. However, for 21 of the 24 hours in the car, the dogs insisted on riding separately. So, one in the passenger seat, one in the back. They changed places often. To do this, the dog in the back would get annoyed and simply move to the passenger seat. Meaning both dogs were in the front, a struggle would ensue. And the first dog would relent and move to the back.
During the fourth hour the first battle for the front seat began. Hercules lost, was forced to give up his seat and retreat. However, as he moved to the back, his massive rear end bumped into my shifter.
My car, in addition to being rather sporty- has a manumatic or tiptonic shifter. Meaning, if you bump the shifter to the left, then it shifts into manual drive. In his retreat, Hercules bumped it three times in about two seconds.
All of which occurred in a Mercedes traveling at 75 mph. Which is now in second gear.
Imagine if you will, the pandemonium that occurred as the car attempted the slow down. Two dogs and myself are slammed forward as I attempt to comprehend what has happened.
Fortunately I had my wits about me and was able to correct the problem before the transmission dropped out of the car! The other twenty hours of the trip? I'll write about those later!
