Christmas Road Trip!

Hey Everyone!

Well before I share with you all my road trip adventures. I have to start with my latest AKC title arriving!

My mom completely forgot that this was on its way, so we were both surprised when the mail came and there was a large envelope from AKC. Low and behold it was my Rally Excellent title:

It's always exciting to get that new title in the mail. Now onto my last 48 hour adventure! It's that time of year where mom and I head to Florida to celebrate Christmas with Gramma, Granddad, my 2-legged Uncle Tim, Aunt Jamie, cousins Nicole, Megan, and Jason, and of course my 4-legged Aunts Girl and Hanna, and Uncle Orion. Last Christmas, mom and I drove Granddad's car to Florida and then flew back. I thought I would be glad to drive both directions this year, but we will see. Mom and I began our journey leaving my house at 6:15 on Wednesday morning. We had a plan to stop every 90 miles or at least every 2 hours to stretch our legs. Mom had prepped me that it was going to be a long 2 days in the car. We decided to take the Jeep rather than the fun convertible to have more leg room and be better prepared for potential weather on the way home. Well our first stop was an Oklahoma rest area. Mom and I took this as a photo opportunity to start our adventure. I should also note that I had mom start the odometer at 0 as we were leaving the house.

As we exited the rest stop I decided I should take my role in the co-pilots chair seriously and look over the printed directions. I was pretty excited that mom grabbed the green pillow that I love so much. She said that my cousin Nicole got it for her many years ago.

Then before I knew it, we were crossing into the state of Arkansas. Mom told me that her friend Suzanne shared that when crossing into a new state that you can pick up your feet and make a wish.....this may work for the 2-legged out there, but it was quite challenging for this 4-legged!

We made a couple of stops in Arkansas because there were all kinds of signs warning us that there was going to be this massive construction with an extensive delay and that we should consider an alternative route. Mom made sure that our bladders were empty, the car gas tank was full, and our tummy's had stuff to put in them and we stuck to the planned course. The construction wound up to be no big deal and a short 6 1/2 hours after we left the house we were crossing into Memphis, Tennessee.

One of the coolest things about going into Memphis is that I got to cross the Mississippi River on a really cool looking bridge. Mom was so awesome in that she rolled down the window and let me hang my head out the window while going across the bridge on the highway!

We weren't in Tennessee for long before we crossed over into Mississippi. At this point, I was starting to get a little bored with my navigator duties. Mom said that I could take a little nap, so I tried to get comfy and take a little rest. This was easier said than done. Every time I closed my eyes, all I could think about was Christmas and seeing family and hanging out with everyone and I would get so excited that I would get fidgity!

Then before I knew it we crossed into Alabama. This would be where we would stay for the night in a city called Montgomery. Mom and I were so grateful to get to the hotel that we both forgot to take some photos of our accommodations and just called it a night.

This morning we left the hotel at 6:15 central time and headed on our way. We crossed into Georgia (we were on a dinky little road so there was no "Welcome to Georgia" sign). Then about 3 hours later we were crossing into Florida. I knew once we got back onto a major highway (Gramma and Granddad led us on a more a "scenic route" through Alabama and Georgia) that I could be off duty for a little while and mom could follow 75 for the 200+ miles to the Florida turnpike.