Travel, the farm dogs

I am hesitant to say it is good to be back at work but I can say that it is good to be back home – even thought our hearts are at the farm in Bowie. Mama and I traveled over 3000 miles since we left Amarillo on the 18th of December. We left after church on that Sunday night and drove to Bowie; arriving at 1 a.m. We left for Maggie and Aaron’s the next morning after walking on the farm for a few minutes. While in Gulf Breeze we did some pottery, picked up the grandchildren after meeting halfway, went to the commissary in Gulfport, and met Aaron at the dock (who, incidentally arrived with Santa) on Thursday morning before leaving to go to Cori and Nate’s.


On the way we hit some horrific traffic and were delayed over an hour during which time Blake fell asleep in his car seat. That was not necessarily a bad thing. When he woke up in his car seat, that was a bad thing and he cried for about 45 minutes as we finished the trip to Pace. He was ready to see his mommy once he recognized where we were. We had Christmas with Cori, Nate and the kids and it felt more like Christmas because of that. It is always fun to see the little ones open presents and share their expressions of sheer job and unrestrained delight at what they find within the wrapping. Blake is still interested in the boxes while Mykenzie and Grant can’t wait to get everything out of the boxes.

We all left Florida at the same time. Mama and I headed for the farm and Cori, Nate and the kids headed north to attend the wedding of his sister, after which they had some fun things planned. I think they arrived at their destination a little before we did at ours. Mama was excited about trying a new way which looked like it would save us some time. It did not. It was not a bad way to come home, but it still took 13 hours plus to make the trip to Bowie.

I had to be at work in Decatur on Friday to begin my callout coverage for this week, but on Saturday we went to Chappell Hill to a birthday party for my Dad who turned 87 years old. (We actually left on Friday night and spent the night with Sarah and Fabian so we did not have to do ten hours of driving on Saturday.) Seven of the eight kids were there and we hopefully got some great pictures. I say hopefully because we left the digital camera with Cori and we took the film camera with us. On the second roll of film it began to mess up. I think the sensor that tells the camera the film door is shut was malfunctioning and the camera kept advancing the film and re-zeroing the count. We will not know what we have until we get the film exposed, but I know I missed some very good pictures as a result. We only returned to Amarillo yesterday evening.

On Thursday night, prior to heading to Dad’s birthday party, we went to Costco which is about an hour away from Bowie. We needed to get some toilet paper for a friend who had made the request of us before we left Amarillo. I told Mom and Dad that I know I am back in Texas when I drive an hour each way to get toilet paper and five hours each way to attend a birthday party.

We released the dogs from quarantine after we got back to Bowie. Mama was afraid they would run off and not come back but they did just the opposite. They followed close on our heals the entire time we were there. Grandpa and I built rebuilt the area we had them pinned up in and now they get put up each night – for their own protection, at their current size they are good coyote bait – and let out when someone is there. They do have a tendency to wander but we try to keep an eye on them and do not let them get too far afield.

Mama was going to bring the dogs from the farm to Amarillo but I was not in favor of the idea at all. Mind you, I was not opposing it, but I was not in favor of it either especially when we are planning on returning to Bowie next week. Victoria gets to spend that week on the farm with us. Anyway, since Grandpa was not in favor of the idea either, Mama left to dogs in place in Bowie. Grandpa is really enjoying having them around and they seem to be very much at home on the farm with him.

It really is getting harder to leave each time.