home

Everyone is asking me, How was your trip?  And then tentatively, almost in a whisper, How was the drive?  Now I know I spared you from the gory details of the trip to Oregon.  Turns out, the return trip was almost exactly the same.

First day: A 6-hour drive took 10 and the last hour was pure misery.  I can handle listening to other people's babies cry, but my own?  It is absolutely agonizing torture, probably on par with waterboarding.  I believe the stress and raised blood pressure of having to hear your own baby cry takes several years off your life.  I kept telling her, I am so sorry Juniper!  We're almost there!  Just a little farther.  But I don't think she even heard me for all of her wailing.  If I pulled over, stopped the car and climbed in the backseat with her, she was all smiles and laughs.  Unfortunately, despite what my mother might tell you, I cannot drive from the backseat.  That part sucked.

Second day: A 6-hour drive took 8 and that's including stops.  So much better.  It was like apples and oranges, those two days on the road.  The second day was so good, in fact, it was easy to forget the first day.  Juniper slept, slept, slept and when she did awake, she was all, Aaaah, laaaaa, la and happily chewing on her Kenya doll.  And Osa was so comfy in the back that she didn't even want to get out at stops.

When I planned this trip, it didn't even cross my mind for a second that taking a 5 month old baby and a geriatric dog on a two day drive might not be such a blessed idea.  And that makes me proud.  That I didn't think twice about it.  That I don't consider having a baby a type of handicap.  [Full disclosure: I did tell my mom that next time, I will look into the price of plane tickets.]

:: My mom took us for a hike near the coast.  Love the dripping, oozing forests of western Oregon.

Juniper loved it too--she was mesmerized by the tumbling water, and squealed at the sight of Osa trotting down the trail.  And then (she is so predictable), she fell asleep in the front pack.  

 

:: We came home to Montana to celebrate a birthday in our household, and spend more time in the spring air.  

:: Osa is epileptic, has congestive heart failure and arthritis and her muscles are shrinking and her belly is distending and she is just plain old, but when she gets out in the woods, she turns into a sprightly puppy.  On this walk, she managed to find and eat: 

* 2 piles of coyote turds

* 1 pile of deer turds

* 1 deer leg  

You gotta hand it to her; that dog knows when to wake up and live.    

:: Check out that lower lip.  We love the lower lip.  A wild turkey could go to roost on that lip.