The Walkabout: Part Deux und a halvensteugen

When last we left our heroes, they were about to be dipped in a vat of caramel by the evil villain McSnickers but luckily, Dustin who was the more "fabulous" of the pair, came up with a solution involving window treatments and dimmer switches...



Uh, wait. That's not what happened at all. It was throw pillows and dimmer switches. Gotta get this stuff right people. Sigh. Amateurs.

Anyway, we left off with T and I having escaped the deadly gangland of the Hood in Newburgh and eventually (and I mean eventually) got to our KOA destination. The Kabin (Get it? KOA? Kabin? Ahahahaaahaha...oh nevermind) reminded me a tad of Friday the 13th but the manager assured me that Jason was on vacation in Cabo so we were relatively safe. Now, time for a scheduled flashback (man I hate the regular flashbacks)...

Saturday, June 27
Okay. We slept in a little (*cough* noon *cough hack*) but the scariness of Newburgh took a lot outta us. Well, I got my typical morning manicure, pedicure, mud bath, massage and exfoliation. We were ready to roll around 6:00 in the morning. Ha! I kid. No, we left the Kabin at like 1:30 in the P.M. We had to follow Jenn, Dee and Jeane to Susan's house because apparently no one in NY state believes in road signs! It's like you need to be clairvoyant or something to find your way anywhere. Okay, we made it to Susan's for the BBQ (I always wanted to be redneck and say BBQ). What can I say about the BBQ? Hmmmmmm. We came, we saw, we left...yeah, that sums it. LOL I slay me. No, really the BBQ was nice and Susan's house is on a very nice plot'o land. There were pugs up the wazoo and a bunch of people I hadn't met before but ended up liking. Shout out to Bridge (read Jane Eyre), Lisa, Christine (and Otis), Felicia (wascawwy wabbit), Kater (watch out for the killer groundhog) and Susan/Joan for hosting. One of the purttier things was watching fireflies after sunset. It was like little stars flashing around you. It was grooooooovy, maaaaaaaaan. Then we followed peeps back to the deathtra...I mean Kabin. Pugs were seriously tired and snored alllll night.

Sunday, June 28
So, we had more ambition this day (i.e. got up at 2:00 in the afternoon) so we debated what to do. In the end, Susan, Lois, Joan, T and I went to Hyde Park and visited the FDR Presidential Library and their estate, Springwood. The mansion was dark and old and dark and cramped and did I mention it was dark? It was interesting though. FDR's and Eleanor's gravesite was in a pretty little rose garden. Plus there was an art piece made out of two sections of the Berlin Wall. Very cool but they had a bronze bust of FDR and Churchill's fat head. He was crashing the party I think. We then went to a seafood shanty (I've always wanted to say shanty) on the shore of the Hudson River. The outside patio where we ate was built right on the water. There was a flock of duckies and a gaggle of geeses. Jenn, Dee, Ian and Jeane joined us. I really wanted to order the duck breast but I had to get permission from the mama duck first. Here's how it went:
me: So, uh, hi.
mama: *waaack*
me: So, I was, uh, thinking of ordering one of you, er, one thing like you and I just don't want my, uh, head to get attacked. And don't tell me you wouldn't. I've seen The Birds!
mama: *waaack wonck*
me: So we have an agreement? Excellent! I'm gonna go, uh, eat one of, er, your disssstant relatives. You, um, take care. Watch your carb intake. It's important!
Well, it went well and the duck was yummy although I think one of them was eyeing me from the water. Anyway, we went back to Psychotic Murderer La...I mean the KOA and tried to fry marshmallows but the 308% humidity made that difficult. The ladies went to sleep and we went inside the wooden tomb, er, uh, kabin after leaving the pugs there alone for a time. Well, they tore stuff off our little desky thing and The Puppy (e.g. Sammy) learned a new trick. He peed on our bed and got up on T's pillow, while we were watching him, and let loose a gusher, then looked at us like Voila! The trick, she is done! Ohhhhh, we wanted to punt him like a football, but he just got spankins and to sleep on the floor that night. Puppies!

Monday, June 29
We had to wake up earlier because people were gonna cruise home and we had to say goodbye. It was tearful for me, mostly because T accidentally sprayed me with mosquito stuff. It tastes fruity actually. So we made our adieu's and left in the afternoon. We made our way by towns called Fishkill, Plattekill, Valkill and Wallkill. What in the hell haven't they killed there? It was a little creepy after a bit. Maybe Jason came back because his vacation days werw running out. That evening, we drove across Pennsylvania. What's it like there? One word: Scranton. Enough said. We stayed in Youngstown, OH that night. The place creeped T out. I thought it was because of the killer tumbleweeds just beyond the parking lot. Somehow, we survived the night.

Tuesday, June 30
Alrighty, having got the heck away from the Teenage Mutant Killer Tumbleweeds from Outer Spaaaaaaaaace, we drove the looooooong leg. We went through Ohio (all I have to say about Ohio is toll booth much? I mean, Good Lord) and Indiana (stopped at Notre Dame. woohoo!) and through Chicago (I mean through Chicago. Nothing like speeding through Chicagoland @ 70 MPH while little tiny cars dart around you. I was fine. T, on the other hand, needed Xanax. There was none. Oh well. We made it back to Rockford, IL and, well, we remained there.

Wednesday, July 1 & Thursday, July 2
So, we awaken on Wednesday and get ready to leave and we turn on the wheelchair and...nothing happens. I mean nothing! I could hear crickets. So, T goes through a cursory exam of my electric hell buggy and concludes that there's something wrong. Thank heaven for T...LMAO...ah, I love her. Well, we're in Illinois and my chair's broken and we have 0 good ideas. We hadda lotta bad ideas (most involving Tequila, a paintball gun and two small oranges) but no good ones. Once we realized how expensive oranges were, we started making calls. We phoned home (Missoula) and go nowhere. Then we called Rockford Orthotics and they had dudes who could, like, fix the cart. Righteous! Okay, no more surfer talk. T had to drive me in the van, had to drive south like 8.63 Million blocks and then drove me into their shop in this very neo-classical building downtown. We were there for 2 hours but they did get me running. Turns out it was the radiator. ROFLMAO...man, I kill me. Anyway, these guys were awesome and total shout out to them. Now, problem. We were supposed to be in Worthington, Minnesota that night. Instead, we stayed in Rockford which is a nice town. It just blew our extra day to visit Mt. Rushmore and the Crazy Horse Monument in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Missing them sucked lemons. Wednesday was hard on T so she partook of Guinness and other liquified solid foods and we ate deepdish again. Thursday we actually left Rockford. I listened to my Ipod and we made it to Worthington. Worthington ended up being a story unto itself...

Thursday night, July 2 running over into 3
All the way on the trip, we made accommodations the day before we arrived. T checked that the establishments were puggy and that the beds in the hotel would work with the crane thingy I use to transfer. Basically, we needed a bed that the crane thingy could roll completely under or I couldn't get in bed. T was incredibly specific about asking about the bed and having people check the specific room before we reserved it. Worthington was no different...until we got there at 10:30 to find out that an old guy "misstated" the type of bed there. So, we couldn't stay there. Yippee! The desk lady made an arrangement with the Super 8 a few miles away, so we went there...and found out it wouldn't work either. By now it was 11:30 P.M. and had no room. Out of desperation, we called the Holiday Inn Express which had the correct bed but was totally unpuggy. We asked the Manager if he could make an exception under the circumstances. His answer was no! So, the Holiday Inn Express in Worthington, Minnesota is run by a jerk. Finally, sometime around 1:00 A.M., the original place offered a roll-away for me and we took it. It was not comfortable but it was literally our only option.

Friday, July 3
We checked that morning about our hotel for that night and discovered that it wasn't workable. We actually called the Holiday Inn Express in Wyoming and they were surprisingly puggy. Weird, I know. We drove accross South Dakota and ran into rain. I'm talking think-Noah-gave-us-the-finger-when-we-passed-him type rain. Ick. But we did take a picture of a giant dinosaur thing in South Dakota. Yea Ian! We finally floated outta SD and into Wyoming. Our night went normally there.

Saturday, July 4
We hit the road early and made it back into Montana. We drove and drove and drove. Puggies were tired, T was tired and I started talking in an odd Chinese accent. We arrived back home at roughly 11:30 P.M. and the pugs who we didn't take got very happy. Kari wheezed and stuck to T, Ripley gave T moochy moochy moochies. Harley barooed. All of them except the puppy slept with us. It was happy, comfy and puggy.

And we all pugged puggily after...
so far...:D

***fin***