heading south

First day of our trip.... NOT as smooth and unstressful as I had hoped. I probably did not make the wisest decision to bring Camille with us. Nothing do with Camille herself, she is a great little traveler.. just that for the most part, we are NOT a dog friendly place, and finding hotels/motels that will take a dog can be tricky. Also the fact that we were traveling on a holiday weekend..... began to cut out chances way down.

We got a late start because I had to work in the morning, And after that, we still needed to take the other dogs down to Kas and Nate's. So it was close to 3:00 before we were really traveling. We got about six hours in and began to look for a place to sleep. The first stop, we found only one place that would take a dog... however, the bigger trouble was... the whole town was filled with work trucks... electrical and tree. Crews that had traveled to New England to help with storm damage... never thought about them!!! The one place that would take us and Cam, (full with work crews) suggested that we travel another hour south and see if we could get away from the damage area.

So, on we went. This stop was no better.... I didn't even get to ask about Cam, because we were told.... "HUGE soccer tournaments in the area" all hotels had been booked for weeks.... best keep heading south.

We didn't find a hotel, but we did come across the "Orange county choppers"... yup the real ones that are on TV!!!!

Sadly, they had closed about 10 minutes before we came across them, it would have been fun to poke around their place... but we had to do with looking from the outside in.

I didn't realize that they weren't that far away from us (about six to seven hours) so, sometime this might be a fun weekend thing to do. Drive down (without dog!!!) find a place to stay, and visit.

It was getting really late. I was beginning to think that we might really have to pull over and rest in the truck. But finally, one place that had just a couple of rooms open.

It was "ok".... clean, but beds as hard as bricks, and guess what - no dogs!!! Ed was so tired that he said he had to take it and just lay down for a few hours. So, we took it and Cam found herself sleeping out in the truck (I couldn't even sneak her in because you had to walk by the front desk to get to the room) Several times I went out to check on her. About the third time threw the night clerk wanted to talk. She went on and on about "why" they didn't take dogs (like I care) I was tired and mad... and then I asked her - what about a service dog. She said "well, they had one room that they would let a service dog in - and only if the room was available". I asked, what would you do if that room wasn't available, and she said - "probably tell them no dog"... really???? it's three o'clock in the morning, I am tired, mad and now you're telling me that you would break the ADA laws... it was more than I could handle and I went back to the room before I got myself in trouble and got us kicked out. Goodness, the public needs some major education with service dog laws!!!!!

Needless to say, we were out of there first thing in the morning. Ed got some sleep (I got none) and we just wanted to be on the road. The weather was grey, but a welcomed sign began to make us feel better. Breakfast at Cracker Barrel.... maybe day two of this trip would be better.

Grateful to all the crews that helped during the storm. We had no power for four days, so I am happy to see extras... but when we saw this line of trucks, no wonder there weren't any motels to be found last night!!!!!

We stopped for fuel and found this beautiful creature... a praying mantis.... I'm taking him as a symbol of "good luck" for the rest of the week!!!!