One week, 38 hours of driving, in 3 parts, a tiny puppy named Tiki, and over 100 bucks in rolled pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters. Vacations are a wonder*ful thing. Pat looked for months last year to find a Bichon Frise breeder she liked. Finally, she found one about 350 miles from here. She and I went to get the puppy, ended up getting two puppies, and fell in love with the whole family. My daughter (N), who has one Bichon for my granddaughter and has wanted another for my grandson (D), immediately said she'd wait for the next litter from L's dogs. We stayed in touch with L for almost a year, sending pics and updates on the doggies. All her people stay in touch, which is a cool thing to see how all the brothers and sisters are doing. So, when the mama dog was pregnant a few weeks ago, there was already a waiting list of friends and friends of friends for puppies. L had told N she could have first pick a long time ago.
I'm trying to make this short, it could be a book. Short version...N couldn't come to see or get a puppy, Pat and I went and picked out the puppy, with a lot of calling and sending pics over the phone while we were there. As soon as I walked in though, Tiki came up to me and said, "Oh there you are, I'm ready to go". There was no contest, it was obvious which puppy belonged to D. So, Tiki came home with me for a couple of days, until we could make plans to get the dog another 600+ miles to N. We left Wednesday, and left there to come back home Sunday. I'm still tired. It was wonderful to see L and her husband again, we took the other two Bichons with us, so there were 8 Bichons running around being funny. They are the happiest, most entertaining dogs ever.
The visit with my daughter, son-in-law, and grandkids was perfect, except it was so hard to leave. Tiki and their other dog, Coconut, were immediately best friends, and by the time we left, Tiki was mostly potty trained and followed the kids everywhere they went.
There's so much more, it was a very special event, with lots of twists and turns, I might write more another time.
Gas prices! Went progressively higher heading north. Started at 3.73 here, ended at 4.19. Cost was probably about the same per mile, the low prices were where we were going over mountains, watching the gas gauge needle go down, higher prices were over flat land.
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