Kansas Road Trip

The roads in Kansas are straight, thank you very much, unlike
the paved over deer paths that are typical Virginia roads.

There's a pair of geese among the lily pads in the foreground.
They are residents of the pond on the community's property.
They have a nest under the tree on the left and the gander
spends much of his time warning dogs and other interlopers
to stay away from the nest.

I got back Sunday evening from a trip to Kansas. This trip was different from my Kansas trips in recent years in that I drove. I had not made the drive to and from Kansas in many years, probably since sometime early my law school years. It's a 1200 mile trip each way, at least 10 hours of driving each day depending on stops. It was kind of fun to do again, sort of an adventure even, but I was pretty tired at the end of the second day. Fortunately the route is pretty easy driving for the most part, and I did my driving on the weekends, which helped with the city traffic portions.



My mother moved into a senior living community a few months ago. She got a very large apartment with three bedrooms, 2 baths, living room, dining room, and kitchen. Consequently she didn't have to do a whole lot of downsizing. I went back to get the rest of the odds and ends out of her house so she could put it on the market. That turned out to be a bigger job than anticipated, but I did get it about 98% complete by the end of the week and a neighbor will take care of the rest. I didn't have time to do much that resulted in pictures, but here are a few.

This is my mother's pug, Jake. He and the gander exchange
dirty looks through a sliding glass door.

Jake really has no interest in the geese, their
nest, or eggs. He likes his walk around the
pond but mostly he's a very indoor dog.

Among the things I moved were many of the pots from
my mother's container garden. These three came to her
new place and I got them planted too.

On the way home from Kansas I stopped in to visit Kate and Kim, but mostly to see their new pup, Reka. I was lucky enough to be there on a day she had both ears up. It remains to be seen what the final configuration of those things will be. She's cute, sweet, she's a puppy.

Bebe is the senior dog of the household now.

This is Cache, who is easily missed in pictures because
of his size, but he actually plays with the much larger
Reka quite a bit, and it's good for a bigger dog to learn
to scale down the play with smaller creatures.

That's Cache at the bottom of the picture,
barely making it in. Bebe jumped into my
lap whenever I sat. I pulled Reka up to sit
beside me.

I did not have a lot of opportunity to shop for dog bling.
I got the four Kansas items from my sister Kate on the way
home. The Maya key chain I bought at an Ozark's tourist
shop driving back through Missouri. I also got her the one
that says "Daddy's Girl." I couldn't find one with Serena's
name, but oddly did see one with her former name, Serenity.

Meanwhile, back home, there was a bit of doggie drama in my absence. The second day I was away the dogs got into one of the food containers in the house. That had to have been a combined effort of Maya and Serena, with Maya supplying the brains and coming up with the idea, using Serena's size to accomplish her nefarious goal. The result of gorging themselves was several days of Great Dane diarrhea. Maya and Lily got into a fight a few days later. We are not sure what set it off. Maya got the best of Lily in the squabble but ended up being sore for a couple days, whereas the much younger Lily bounced back quickly. They've been kept separated since then but I'm in the process of brokering a truce now that I'm back home. Maya can hold a grudge - it's something else that she and I have in common.