Choo-choos and Bullfrogs

Hi yo my pack peeps! Can you believe another week has gone by? This one has been full of firsts but we were up for it.

We pulled out of Walkabout around 11am which gave us plenty of time to watch the Community of Faith early service. Bark out to the ding-a-ling chime group! Great job everyone.

Since we had not unhooked for our stay at Walkabout it was an easy time to just get things all set in the house, or so we thought we had gotten things in order. More to come on that! We merged with the I-95 traffic without any issues. This new destination was 4 hours away and was going to be our longest drive so far. We had settled in to our sweet spot of 65 mph but shortly we were in bumper to bumper traffic. My hoomans forgot that this was the Sunday after 4th of July and everyone was driving home. Our 4 hour test of endurance turned into 5 and a half hours. We were pushing it for sure. My hoomans are sometimes not the brightest pups in the pack and they thought that they would never have to go to a gas station pulling the house. Not so - we had to get gas! There was a Love's station that we thought would be a good place before we hit more traffic at Savanah. Sometimes you just don't know about a place until you pull into it and find out it is a regular station, not one with big pump areas, and a lot of people and cars waiting to get gas. Remember it was a holiday weekend! We pulled in line for the pump at the end and the person was done pumping as we pulled up so we did not have to block others who were trying to pull out of parking spots. It was a successful gas stop without hitting people, cars, or gas pumps. Whew. To get back onto I-95 we had 2 roundabouts to navigate but these were mini roundabouts that only had 1 lane going around the circle. When we got back on to the highway my hoomans whooped because they made it through several firsts. They need to warm me before whooping because they startled me.

The other campgrounds that we had stayed at were just off of I-95 so getting there was very easy. Not so much with this new site. We drove on a 4 lane road and through a sleepy little town with railroad tracks that were very bumpy. I had to look up from my spot behind the driver's seat to make sure that we were not going to shake off the side of the road. Yes, sometimes I do have to be a backseat driver. This was the first time that we were driving with cars on one side of us and a curb on the other. My hoomans were happy it was Sunday because there was very little traffic and they could drive below the speed limit - we were truly Sunday drivers.

We finally arrived at Cross Roads Coach Resort in Lake City, SC. Are you asking yourself what ROB means on the sign? It stands for "really old building" which was on the site. As I mentioned above that we thought the house was all good to go, we were quite surprised when we opened the door that the sofa was on the floor, the pantry had spit out nearly all of it's contents, and the closet had thrown all the clothes on the floor. I am blaming those roundabouts for causing all that mess in the house. It is just another learning on this wonderful journey!

When we booked our site the gentleman was really excited that our site would have an unobstructed view of the pond. We were really excited about that and was looking forward to sitting there in the morning drinking our tea. This is the pond.

Our site with the unobstructed view really just looked over a gully. I tried hard not to show my displeasure and the site was very nice with little trees and bushes between the other sites. The dog park was a good size so we were ok with where we were. One of the things that was not mentioned was that the train tracks ran right beside the resort and several trains ran during the day AND at night. It was not a big deal for us but the Bullfrogs in the empty pond sometimes got a little boisterous!

Lake City, SC is reviving itself into an artsy district. They have several building that artists have painted and we walked thru town to see some of them. But first we saw this caboose that had been turned into a little snack bar area. I was checking if there was anything cooking but it was closed.

Across from there was the first mural we looked at. I had to keep an eye open for those bees! They looked pretty big and a lot of them. Even though my hoomans said they were just painted on the build I was not sure about them, they looked pretty big to me. Ok, so actually I was watching the train tracks because I heard one coming and I don't like how noisy they can be. It is ok when I am in the house but not right beside the track.

Our next mural was painted for the portrait studio in town. I thought it would be nice to be in the picture. Who doesn't need a handsome boy in their portrait?

I thought I looked pretty good surrounded by flowers and the pink brings out the color of my tongue.

This one just made me want to sing!

I saved my favorite one till last. There are at least 5 things hidden in this painting. This artist did that for all of his murals. It was fun to try and find them. See if you can see any of them. You might need to zoom in.

Our last stop before going into the Blue Frog restaurant was this flower sculpture. I am glad we did not try to find any other murals because it was so humid that the feels like temperature was 10 degrees higher than the actual temperature. It was nice to go into the Air Conditioning and rest my tummy on that nice cool floor. It felt sooooo good!

After lunch we went home to cool off for the rest of the day. The next day we got an early start and went to the local park that had a lovely walking path around a pond. My hoomans have promised me that I will get a visor or sunglasses. They do make sure to put sunscreen on my nose but I could totally rock the shades.

On the far side of the pond there where Canadian Geese. I was thinking about seeing if they wanted to play chase with me but the closer we walked to them the meaner they looked so I figured they were not in the mood and we walked by. I thought I heard one tell the leader that they could easily make an example of me for the other dogs who want to chase them. We ignored them but I kept an eye on them anyway incase I had to make a fast dash to the car!

It was time to wish Cross Roads so long as we headed to our next destination at Sycamore Lodge in NC. My hoomans had more firsts in store for this leg of the journey. This campground was only a couple hours away but we traveled on all the types of roads! We were first on a 4 lane road that led to I-95. It was not long till we got on a 4 lane road that then went down to a 2 lane road. Yes, we went thru towns. As we got closer to the campground the roads became more country and winding. We drove through a town and had to make several turns at stoplights. Fortunately there was not a lot of traffic and we were able to take over the other side of the street or the lane beside us as we were making these turns so we did not run over any curbs. I was doing a lot of backseat driving for this and I know it was super comforting for them to hear me telling them how to drive. We got to the Lodge safe and sound and then the thing that my hoomans were most concerned about was backing into our campsite! Fortunately there was a wonderful gentleman named Glen who escorted to our site and guided us in without any difficulty at all. I am not sure if my hoomans are ready to do that on their own yet but they are more comfortable now then they were. As they were setting up I got to supervise and dig in the sand which is one of my favorite things to do and it keeps my tummy cool.

The second day we were here they had all day rain storms. I know my hoomans like it when I get under their feet when the storms get really loud. It comforts them that I am here.

There were a lot of people checking in for the weekend and I was not sure that I was going to be happy about all the noise. As loud as people were during the day when 11pm hit all was quiet. The next day the campground had a soak your neighbor event. People would be in their golf carts with Super Soakers and drive around shooting people at their sites. The thing is that the people at their sites also had Super Soakers and would shot the people in the golf carts. In the writing it sounds pretty "gangsta" but everyone seemed to have a really fun time. We stayed in our house to stay dry. Being shot with streams of water is not my idea of a good time. They did have some food trucks later on in the evening which is totally my idea of a good time. I made a very good friend with the lady at Sweet Pines Fried Dough who made me a special pup cup. She really could have talked less and fed more but she was nice so I'll forgive her.

Of course my hoomans needed to get a fried dough and another pup cup for me to take home since they don't last very long.

With all this yummy-ness we needed to take a nap and close this edition.

Until next week - tail wags and doggie kisses, Rownen out.