Just noticed that the picture featured on bing.com today was of Carhenge.
Guess who’s been there?!..
It was one of our spontaneous road trips. And while we had a good time, we wouldn’t necessarily recommend driving several hundreds of miles out of your way to see it! (And since it’s in Nebraska, it is pretty much out of the way no matter where you’re going.) Surprisingly it’s really not as exciting as you might think.
Luckily for Kylie, it was all about the journey – always!
One of our favorite things to do in the summer as a family was to go to the drive in movie. We would throw a futon mattress and a bunch of pillows and blankets in the back of the crv pack up a bunch of snacks and head out nearly every weekend.
Kylie loved it, though she was more interested in the stray cats that roamed the drive in, than whatever movie was on the screen, so for her it was always an action adventure! She would growl, in that low, threatening, jack russell terrorist growl when the cats (or sometimes kids) would come near. And if they kept coming she’d break into a bark and then get shushed, but it was so funny! Then she would remain vigil as long as she could until she got too sleepy. Sometimes we’d explore during intermission (sometimes even during the film), and you can imagine how intriguing the smells were.
She also especially enjoyed the “movie snacks” because we also packed treats for her! And of course she also got to share the popcorn, or nachos, or whatever we got when we would visit the snack bar.
It didn’t matter to us what movies were playing either, in fact we watched some pretty crappy movies. It was just the most fun form of affordable family entertainment, where we could all just be together. It was about the experience! And like everything else we did together, it was always fun for us just to watch Kylie experience things.
And it often was quite an adventure, between cats, and bats (yes, bats), swarms of moths, smokers, and noisy teenagers, cold, hot, rain or shine – well not shine that really wouldn’t work – we always had fun, because we were together.
We miss you Kylie, and miss taking you to the drive in.
Alternate title for this post “Kylie Hates Golden Retrievers”…
On one of our first big road trips after moving to the mainland, all three of us went on a trip to Boston! It was the first time any of us had been there so it was very exciting. Especially for Kylie with all the new sights and smells and all the Golden Retrievers!
It was presumably the first time Kylie had ever seen a Golden Retriever, or as we call them, the Toyota Camry of dogs, and for some reason she developed an instant dislike of the breed.
We were in a nice little artsy shop called Industry, where there was a big friendly retriever lounging, minding her own business. (She was literally “minding her own business,” in fact but we’ll get back to that.) The next thing we knew Kylie was like a badger on a leash trying to kick her golden ass! We called her off and scolded her and apologized profusely to the shopkeeper, who checked the victim of the attack out and saw that there wasn’t a scratch on her.
Then they explained to us that “Industry” was the Golden’s name and it was HER store – their tag line was “She’s a bitch to work for!” Yikes! Good job, Kylie! So we made a nice sized purchase before leaving the store including the fancy ceramic treat jar that was prominently located on her cookie bar for years to come.
Later that afternoon we were walking down the sidewalk approaching our car and a guy came around the corner with a big Golden Retriever walking beside him – not on a leash. We had opened the car door for Kylie to hop in, but just about then the retriever decided to say hello to her. Instead of returning the friendly greeting she lunged at him like a snarling psycho! We yelled again and scolded her again, and apologized again. The guy said don’t worry about it and continued on his way. Then when we got in the car, he approached to inform us that his dog was actually bleeding. We got out and took a look at the dog, who upon closer inspection we realized was a little on the elderly side and had one of his front legs all bandaged up. The blood was coming from a tiny little hole Kylie, aka Jaws, had made in the very soft part of his big nose. Yikes! Good job, Kylie!
So we felt pretty bad, but we did point out to the guy once we verified his dog was not seriously injured, that if he had been on a leash the altercation would have been avoided. And that was pretty much the end of that, and it was pretty much the end of Kylie’s visit to Boston. In fact we told her she was 86′d from the whole city – that’s right she was banned from Bean Town!
Over the next few years the two girls made a few trips to Boston for hockey games and/or shopping but Miss Kylie stayed home with a sitter.
Eventually the ban was lifted and Kylie did make a triumphant return to Boston – and she managed to behave herself. She never, however, got over her issues with Golden Retrievers.
So the thing with Kylie wearing clothes.. we’re really not those people for whom pets are accessories, for dressing up and parading around. Besides, when Kylie was just a pup designer doggie duds were unheard of, unlike now.
But for Kylie’s second christmas photo we bought her a Santa suit – her first christmas she was a Tropical Raindog (it was hawaii.. get it?).
It was a really high quality Santa suit, thick red plush with fuzzy white collar and a broad black belt. She looked quite jolly wearing it! And apparently it made her jolly because when we would take it off she would pick it up, drag it to the middle of the floor and roll around on it until you would put it back on her. She wore a Santa suit for six months! And it was hawaii.. it was hot!
So we started buying her toddler tees and tank tops because like I said, dog clothes were hard to come by, especially in hawaii. She really liked it wearing clothes – we liked it too, we just thought it was weird!
Then when we moved to the mainland and she got her first exposure to canine couture she built up quite the wardrobe.
Funny thing was, after living there for awhile, like a “real dog” chasing squirrels, seeing other dogs out and about, it’s like she realized that she was in fact a dog and dogs did not wear clothes. So she began the occasional protest when we would put cute stuff on her. You could get her to cooperate while you dressed her, but then she would just stand perfectly still.
When she wanted to play in the snow, she was much more tolerant – it was like she understood that it would keep her warm for awhile.
In fact, she liked the snow so much, she would even put up with this…
It was worth it for her.. Kylie loved the snow! And of course we loved putting her in cute stuff, and she looked so adorable in them, so we continued to buy her the latest fashions.
Kylie did like the compliments and attention she got when she was all dressed up, so she was willing to compromise. She was mature like that!
We have a very good friend in California, so good in fact we adopted his parents! They’re the best! Naturally they became Kylie’s doting grandparents, and Kylie loved her grandparents!
Our best road trips were to visit them in Anaheim, and as soon as we arrived she became a different dog. She was so sweet and docile and well behaved… it was weird. We would go gallivanting with our friends and Kylie would stay at the house with her grandparents. She would sit between them on a lay-z-boy and let them spoil her rotten. She would follow them around, go on walks around the neighborhood, being friendly to neighborhood dogs. It didn’t hurt that she got a steady supply of roast beef from her grandma!
After a couple days of that we would ask her, “who are you and what have you done with our punk ass dog?” So we would try and out her. We would get one of the toys she loved to terrorize, we always brought one or two along, and try and get her riled up. It actually only worked once. She suddenly got vicious and pounced on the toy and growled aggressively. Then she suddenly stopped and looked around, and her grandma was shocked, and just as we were about to say, “you see, she’s a mean dog,” her grandma said, “Oh Kylie, are they picking on you? You poor thing.” And Kylie didn’t miss a beat, she played along and went to her like she had been beaten so that she could be comforted with a whole slice of roast beef.
Con Artist!!
The funny thing was that this behavior would go on the whole time we were there, then as soon as the first back pack was in the hatch back, Kylie was in the car and you couldn’t convince her to get out again.
As much as she loved being there, being treated like a princess, she never totally lost that fear of abandonment that shelter dogs always have. She knew if we were loading the car it meant we were leaving and she was not going to be left behind.
Because she had been the victim of a drive by back in the day, Kylie had a pretty serious aversion to loud noises like thunder and of course fireworks. So our plans for pretty much every Fourth of July were to hang out with Kylie and turn up the tv to drown out the amateur pryrotechnics.
But a couple of years ago we went up to visit friends at the mountain home of Ferdinand (great dane) and Fiona (chihuahua) – quite a pair.
Then the human folk decided to go into the tiny mountain town for dinner and to catch the professional fireworks display. We figured the dogs wouldn’t hear a thing several miles away, but that they definitely needed to be separated. Ferdinand was a fifty pound puppy, who was a little too friendly and excited about absolutely everything, while Kylie and Fiona were both.. well, let’s face it.. just plain bitchy and often didn’t play well with others. So Fiona was in the back bedroom, Kylie was in the sunporch, and Ferdinand had run of the rest of the house.
The two girls and friends were out for several hours and returned to find three dogs of various sizes, standing there, tails wagging, waiting to greet us.. TOGETHER!!
We were all wide eyed with dropped jaws and momentarily panicked. But nobody had so much as a scratch and the house had not so much as a misplaced throw pillow. The best we could figure is either they could hear the fireworks and thought there was safety in numbers so they got together to duck & cover. Or more likely, friendly Ferdinand was lonely. We figured it wouldn’t be too difficult for him to use his big nose or giant head to open the sliding door and let Kylie in from the porch; but we have no idea who or how they managed to turn the doorknob to liberate little Fiona from the bedroom. We asked them, but they weren’t talkin’!
