So a few weeks back the Tucson IABCA show was brought up on the Shiloh Shepherd Friends forum, and I'd been feeling like a road trip ever since gas prices dropped. Michelle, who owns Leo's sister Ginger, was going to be there, and Liz, who owns another Leo sister, Sunny, was thinking of going too! Add to that that my brother and his family were visiting my parents in Phoenix for my mom's birthday and VOILA! In no time we were registered for the show and before we knew it, Leo and I were off on a cross-country adventure!! Above is Leo after his grooming appointment, complete with snazzy purple bandana; below is a sleepy Leo in the car just as the sun came up, a few hours into our trip!
Now Leo has always been pretty fussy about where he chooses to "do his business" and we have run into some marathon sessions where he just would NOT go because he wasn't comfortable in the place we picked out for him. But this trip would tax Leo's picky bathroom habits more than any other. Horror of horrors, we realized several hours into the trip that there was NO GRASS! No green grass anywhere! And what "grassy-type vegetation" there was was BITING GRASS! Everywhere poor Leo thought he might like to relieve himself he found nothing but sand burrs, horrible little sharp pods that dogs pick up between their toes. They are hard and sharp and they even hurt you when you pluck them out from your dog's foot! After the second attempt to find a nice spot of grass, Leo just gave up. He did around ten hours of the trip with no place to piddle!
I was worried about my poor dog, who was also not too interested in eating or drinking. So I distracted myself with scenery! I got pretty adept at pointing my camera out my window when we had to go really slow for traffic or construction and snapping a pretty pic of the terrain. The trip out seemed to take forever (it was sixteen hours total) but when we saw our first mountains it was all worth it! Living in the north Texas flat country has really made me appreciate how beautiful the desert mountain landscape is!
As the sun set on our long day on the road we were only a half hour from my parents' winter home up in Phoenix. Leo had no idea what was in store for him...but the picture below contains a hint!!
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