Adventures with dogs

We’ve made the decision to travel with our dogs whenever possible. Since Michael and I are the outdoorsy types, it’s fun to plan our travels with them in mind.

Sometimes they are the monkey in the wrench, though.

We set out for Moab on a bright, sunny Monday morning.

Everything was going great. Made it over Vail Pass with no problems. But then, we pulled into Grand Junction. Specifically into the parking lot of the Grand Junction Qdoba. I opened up the back to get the dogs, take them for a potty break, and found the back of the truck pretty much covered. In. Poop.

It was everywhere. On the cooler, smeared into the carpet and both of the dogs’ sleeping bags.

No Qdoba for us. We loaded the dogs back up and drove to the nearest car wash. I took them for a walk while Michael unloaded everything out of the back – including the storage platform, which comes out in 3 pieces – and went to work with a power washer. Luckily this place also had a wet/dry vac, so the carpet on the storage platform came out clean and fairly dry.

We had to toss the sleeping bags. Which meant we had to replace them with something, as we knew it was going to get chilly during our time in Moab. I guess I really am thankful for smartphones sometimes, because Michael used his to look up Grand Junction’s Salvation Army. Driving there we came across a pickup loaded full of stuff, surrounded by 3 cop cars and twice as many cops. There was a man sitting on the tailgate with his hands cuffed behind his back and for some reason his attire sticks in my memory: black jeans. Black leather jacket. No shirt. One of Grand Junction’s most upstanding citizens, I’m sure. He didn’t look particularly worried.

Anyway – we found the Salvation Army a few blocks later. It took us all of five minutes to find 2 kid-sized sleeping bags and go on our merry way.

This was our setup along Willow Springs Road, just outside Moab:

The addition you see is called the Annex. It came with our tent. It has a bathtub floor and boy were we glad we took the time to set it up – even thought the initial set up was a total PITA and took forever. See, it rained sideways all Monday night. And Tuesday morning. (Actually, this is also why I’m really glad we found those sleeping bags for the dogs.) All the stuff we stored in the annex? Totally dry. Just like us in the tent. I wasn’t expecting to try out the waterproofness of that tent so quickly, but I’m happy to say it passed with flying colors.

The sun finally came out Tuesday afternoon. Nothing like the desert in springtime!

Things were a bit chilly, even after the rain left – but Michael still cooked me an amazing dinner while I photographed the dogs.

Stay tuned for more adventures – more great stories to come (none of them involve poop) and I’ll go into greater detail about the pros and cons of our setup.