Lucky's Mini Vacation

How many of you love dogs? Cats? Animals in general? For all of you animal lovers, I decided to write my next blog about my dog, Lucky, vacationing with us. Since I do enjoy traveling and plan on going away with my husband, sometime in the near future; we tend to leave Lucky in a reputable kennel. I do feel bad as she never has a vacation of her own. Therefore, we try to take her away in the summer. Last year, we ventured to Harrisburg, PA. She loved it and had such a great time. I think the highlight for her was staying in a hotel room with us. However, when we left the room to get dinner, for example, she was wonderful and waited patiently in her cage until we got back. I could tell she felt special. We all decided to visit Hershey Park. Naturally, she was not allowed in so my husband stayed outside with her. My family and I went into the park to learn about the history of Hershey and venture on "Hershey's Chocolate Ride." I do have to say that this was a lot of fun. Outside the park, Lucky was getting attention from everyone. She was having a wonderful time. Most people that passed her by, stopped to pet her. In fact, the focus was taken off the park and more onto Lucky. When we came home, Lucky growled and expressed in her own way that she was not happy to be home. We knew that she would rather be away on vacation. This year we decided to take her to visit Dover, Delaware. We had to wait for my husband to get home from work. My parents came with us just like the year before. We packed up the car and we were ready to go. Lately, I noticed a change in Lucky that she has grown to be a little too dependent on my husband and I. When we leave the house, she will sometimes bark and scream on the top of her lungs. However, I thought maybe in a new place, she will be calm and enjoy herself. The car ride down there took forever. What was supposed to be a three hour ride turned out to be 5 hours. Traffic was unbearable. I must say Lucky was behaving herself. However, my parents were not. Every minute, they spoke out, "How much longer?" I even made a comment to them that Lucky is not complaining. The time came and we finally arrived to what I like to call the Bate's Motel Junior. (The hotel from the movie, "PSYCHO"). We stayed at one of Choice Hotels finest. As soon as we entered the room, the room had a musty scent. The carpeting on the floor was soiled. Lucky went to that soiled area on the rug and sniffed it repeatedly. She looked up at me as if to say, "Are you people kidding me?" By that time we were starved and put Lucky in her crate after feeding her. We left the room. Outside, we did hear Lucky bark. However, we know that she barks for a little and then usually stops after a few minutes. We continued on our way. We wanted to eat on the grounds as there was a "Bob Evans" next door to the hotel. Unfortunately, "lady luck" was definitely not with us that night and they were closed. We found out that down the road, there was a casino. They had restaurants opened late. We decided to eat in an Italian restaurant whch was pretty good. However, I could not enjoy myself as I was thinking about Lucky. I was afraid that maybe we should have not left her; especially since she was barking. I told my family that I didn't feel like gambling after dinner as I just wanted to get back to the hotel to check on Lucky. They understood and agreed. When the bill came, my father went to get change. Ten to fifteen minutes passed. Fifeen minutes became twenty. My mother became nervous and decided to pay the bill on her credit card. We left the restaurant and waited outside. There we viewed the hustle and bustle of everyone on the machines. People were walking back and forth. Some people had smiles on their face with their pockets filled with hope and winnings. Others had angry, sad faces with empty pockets. My mother told my husband to go to security to have my father paged. I kept thinking, "This is great. My father's MIA and Lucky is probally flipping out in the hotel room". I went with my husband to have him paged. I left my mother strict instructions, not to leave and stay in front of the restaurant. Security paged my father and we went back to the front of the restaurant. In disbelief, my mother was not there anymore. "Great, now she was missing". I know my family and I liked the show, "MISSING", but did they really have to make it a reality; especially with Lucky probally flipping out back in the hotel?

After a while, we finally found them. Then we all rushed back to the hotel. When we returned, we saw the room door was open. I opened the door, slowly not knowing what we were going to find. Her cage door was left open. Lucky was not in sight. I flipped my lid. (MISSING PART 2) We ran immediately to the front desk. The man told us that she was barking profusely so they took her out and left her behind the counter. There she was running behind the counter. I was mortified. A year ago, she behaved herself in the room. Here, she was causing a muck. We collected Lucky and put her to bed. She refused to sleep in her cage. We put her on the couch in the room. She refused to sleep there as well. She only wanted to sleep with my husband and myself. We allowed her to as we did not want her raising her barking voice. It is funny how this little peanut had the abilty to control us, just from the sound of her voice. The next day came and we decided to take her to the beach.

The hotel told us that the beach was only fortyfive minutes away. They also informed us that Lucky would be able to walk on the board walk as well as the beach. Fortyfive minutes was really three hours. When we arrived, there was a huge sign, "NO DOGS ALLOWED ON THE BOARDWALK." This was just great. We decided to take her to the beach in a certain area where dogs were allowed. We saw many dogs, skipping across the beach and running to the ocean. They welcomed the cool water with their paws. Many were swimming. This was Lucky's first time on the beach. When she took a look at the water, she looked as though she did not want to be there. We took her little paws to become friends with the sea. She started to becom frightened of the waves crashing against the sand. She backed away and started to cry. My husband wanted to carry her in to get her to feel comfortable. However, she started to turn a purple like color and I told him not to force her. She was afraid. Meanwhile, my parents took a walk on the boardwalk. I told my husband that I would gather my parents so that we could all leave. I went to look for them with the hopes that there would not be a MISSING PART 3. I found them right away, eating an ice cream. I was elated to see at least they were relaxing, some what. However, my mother complained, "Why did we have to go so far for a beach?" I ignored her comment and bought my husband a snack to share with Lucky. I called my husband to tell him to meet us at the car. He did not pick up the phone. I became a little anxious not knowing what Lucky was up to. After ten minutes, he called me back. It seems that a dog went up to Lucky with his nose up in the air. He said something to her in their language. He was on his way back to the ocean. Lucky stopped him from entering the water by jumping up on his back. My interpretation of their conversation was the following: Dog: "Excuse me. You are such a baby; never learned to swim. Ha ha I am heading to the ocean to relax on the peaceful waters. Tah Tah." Lucky: "I'll give you a tah tah. You're not going for swim." (Then with a leap on his back, he was down for the kill.) MY husband had to pry her off of him. He called me and we left. On our journey back to the hotel, we discussed our dinner plans. We did not want a repeat of the night before and we left for dinner in different shifts. My parents had the earlier one and we had the later one. The last day of our trip, Lucky was ecstatic to leave. She was anxious to get into the car away from that hotel. I wonder what was it about that hotel. My imagination ran wildy and I wondered if Lucky smelled the soiled floor in the room and realized that was blood from the past. Could someone have been murdered in the room we stayed in? Right before Lucky left the hotel, she turned around, looked at it, growled and pooped right in the entrance way. We all had a good laugh and knew she hated that place. We then decided to go to the Outlet stores and took Lucky inside of "Coach." This was more her speed. She got so much attention from all the customers. That when we went into another store, she was greeted by other customers that were in other stores with her. People kept coming up to her saying, " Hi Lucky." SHe owned the Outlet Stores. She had a proud smile on her face. She even tried to get me to take her into "The Lenox store." I told her, "you don't need china." I also did not need any problems with her there. We left and found a "Cracker Barrel" for dinner. We took the food to go and found picnic tables outside. We had a nice family dinner and Lucky enjoyed herself as well. It was time to go home. We traveled a long way. My mother decided to say that she was happy that it was not raining. Then she said, "Do you rmemeber that last year it rained on our way home from Pennysylvania?" Just then, as if we hadn't had a stressful weekend to begin with, the sky opened up. We saw lightning light up the dark sky. Rain started pouring down from the heavens. I said, "Thanks mom. We needed that." She said, "Woops. Sorry about that." The road was not too visible as it was quite foggy. It was s little scary

(not as scary as my derecho experience). After several hours, we were home and happy to be home. "HOME SWEET HOME." I think the happiest one was Lucky. She went right into her kennel and went to sleep.