Best Friends

Today we sit 500 miles from our destination which is just west of Mt. Hood, Oregon. We're in a nice little trailer park in Wendell, Idaho. Stopped here in honor of Paul's ultraconservative Marine buddy whose first name is Wendell. He'll be happy to know the town is mostly illegal Mexican farm workers, gays, lesbians and a handful of bisexual transgenders. We expect Wendell will change his name to "Bob". More about this in a future post. But now to something serious in far southern Utah.

 

You may have heard of this place: Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in Kanab. 

Best Friends is home to more than 1000 abandoned dogs, cats, horses, pigs, reptiles, birds and even pet bugs. Like the bumper sticker says, the world is a better place when we are kind to animals.

Spread across more than 3700 acres in southern Utah's red rock country (pretty, but not as pretty as Sedona), Best Friends welcomes visitors, many of whom come for a working vacation. They walk the dogs, feed the horses, care for the other animals, conduct free bus tours and spread the word about animal adoption. In our RV park near Kanab a couple from Illinois introduced us to their new pug "Veronica" who (or is it "whom"?) they had just adopted from Best Friends.



These are the two hummingbirds we adopted. They're flying around inside the trailer crashing into walls and dive-bombing our new pet snake.

All the proceeds from the Best Friends gift shop go to support the organization.

This is for all you cat people. Hug a cat and what do you get? Your eyes scratched out.

Did we tell you about Daisy and my sandwich? A couple of months ago I took home a Styrofoam doggie box with half of a huge sandwich and an even bigger pickle. Paul and I left it in the truck with Daisy while we went into WalMart. Came back not five minutes later and all that was left was an empty box with a few bite marks. She had even attempted to re-close the box so we wouldn't notice. No wonder Daisy's so fat. Don't trust your dog to watch your food. They ain't watchin'. They're eating.

For beer lovers: butt sniffing themed squeaky toy, made in China.

We bought a bunch of gift items, mostly as a donation to the organization, and Paul was greeted by this young cute clerk wearing her magic garments under a sundress and he after paying he thought, "What the hell, I'll give this Mormon thing a try." I now have a sister wife. 

Here's Paul and Daisy, the world's biggest and littlest Morons.

Here's Daisy who refuses to be converted with her new favorite squeaky toy, a rubber bottle of cabernet.

The animals from Best Friends come from all over the country. Overcrowded shelters give their extra pets to Best Friends knowing they'll be well treated and not euthanized. This is not only the largest pet sanctuary in the country but also the largest no-kill shelter.

In an interesting twist, this place is a stone's throw from the huge Navajo reservation where more than 100,000 feral dogs and cats are on their own. It's a disturbing and tragic situation. While driving through the Navajo nation we saw a little puppy sitting petrified on the yellow line between the traffic lanes. We were going to stop and grab it but it made it across the road, into the tall weeds. Only the good, one true Catholic Church Lord knows its fate.

 There are, however, a few rays of hope to help these poor animals through vaccination clinics and spay and neuter events.  Our veterinarian's office in Sedona has a heavy three-ring binder filled with photos and profiles of so-called "res dogs" (reservation dogs)  that need to be adopted.





Daisy with her new best friend, her rubber squeaky cabernet toy and Best Friends bandana. Check out www.bestfriends.org

On down the road we go into Oregon today. Bye bye. Buy Starbucks.

We're BAAAAACKKKKK.......

After an almost two-year hiatus and having sold our 2010 2285 Lance travel trailer with the side slideout, we are back big time. Actually a bit smaller and shorter.  Paul lost his mind and bought yet another Lance. An all-new for 2014 Lance 1885 with side slide. And up the road we go bound for the Grand Canyon with our eventual goal a friend's house in Welches, Oregon near Mount Hood.

But first things first.

By now we've all heard about the little perv running for mayor of Gotham. Planes and trains crash killing hundreds of people, wars are being fought but all headlines are about this clown.

 

So our first night out at the Grand Canyon we enjoyed...

 

Anthony Weiners!

 

Now back to the more mundane at just the most beautiful place in the world, the Grand Canyon.

And somewhere, a thousand feet down there, is Paul's brand new, $100 cowboy hat. The wind picked it up and over the rim it went.

 So he went into an expensive gift shop and emerged with a $40 souvenir Grand Canyon cap.

But the hat actually looks better on Daisy and made her look like George Burns in the movie "Oh God".  Good movie if you haven't seen it. And as you might imagine since this whole damn blog is about Daisy you'll be seeing a lot more of her. Our aim as roundabout as it may seem is to get you up and off your lard butts and hit the road to see this incredible country of ours. Whether by car, trailer, or on foot just get out and get going.  Because the time from diapers to Depends is mighty short. There's much to see and do.

 And speaking of incredible things to see, right next to our campsite was this elk eating a tree.

Even more incredible at the El Tovar Lodge at the Grand Canyon is this riparian-regaled Ein-jine with Starbucks in hand about to dance for tourists.

He got so wired on his triple grande mocha java that he wasn't able to dance upright. Starbucks, by the way, is the world's best coffee and yes, the company supplies coffee to the troops. So all you tea-baggin', Fox News viewin' dippity dooz knock off the BS about Howard Schultz hating the military. And did we mention we have 2000 shares of Starbucks?

 

Some of the tourists were laughing about the riparian-regaled Ein-jine doing a rain dance, but twenty minutes later all hell broke loose. Thunder, lightning and 1.6 inches of rain fell in less than an hour. A nearby campground flooded tents, cars, and trailers.

Unfortunately, three tourists were struck by lightning. Two were killed. That's no joke.*

But in Gotham and elsewhere in this great land all the chatter was about Anthony Weiner, covered extensively on Fox News because he's a loud-mouthed Democrat.

 *A ranger told us that when rain hits the rocks along the canyon rim the rocks act as conductors of electricity. Anyone standing on the rim is in the line of fire and a target for lightning. When storm clouds appear, stay away.

 

More rain. And more thunder.

 Daisy (you remember Daisy) is shaking like a leaf and here's Paul covering her ears to block the sound of thunder.

 

Here's that same elk.

And then another elk appeared. Next to us a group of kids from France were told by rangers not to approach the elk which means if you're young and stupid you approach the elk, getting as close as you possibly can. And if lightning won't get you, believe me, an elk with a full rack will flip you twenty feet into the air. Au revoir!

But this is what it's all about. When the clouds clear, enjoying America at her best. Fresh air, cheap wine...

And Daisy eating health food: Fritos.

Here I am with my middle-aged spread doing the dishes while Paul checks out the young, hot French chicks next door. Damn.

And here he is inspecting the dishes to make sure I did a good job. As he says, "There's clean. Then there's Marine clean."  And for you tea-baggin', Fox News-viewin' dip sticks, Paul is an ex-Marine but a bleeding heart life-long liberal.

Camped across the drive from us some new-found friends in a rented RV. They were taking off for Las Vegas and what they didn't recycle they gave to us: olive oil, toilet paper, and BEER.

This was a family of five from Antwerp, Belgium seeing as much of America as they could squeeze into four weeks. So why the hell are you sitting at home reading this when you should be doing the same?

Get an RV. Get up. Get going. It's later than you think. Plus it wouldn't hurt to buy a Starbucks or two or ten along the way. That would certainly help us.

And think about going green. Daisy did. Note her Mohawk.

Speaking of green, for this 2013 road trip, instead of towing the trailer with our gas-guzzling '04 Tundra, we hooked up our new 2013 four-cylinder hybrid Prius and off we went.

Next stop, Mormon country and pies made by hoes. Say what?

BBBS. Bye-bye. Buy Starbucks.

Hey! Guess what? 

Forget about guessing. I'll tell you.  Paul, Corita, y Daisy Dog will be hitting the road again for further adventures in trailerblazing.  But this time we've downsized to an all-new for 2014 Lance 1885 travel trailer with slideout, bigger bathroom, lots o' storage, and a flat screen television that operates off a car battery. Yeah, baby!

First blog posts start around the end of July. Destination?