Driving Miss Maisie

Trail Napping

She was doing so well.

The dog who refuses to budge from her driveway, who plops down at every intersection, who hasn’t met a patch of grass she wouldn’t sniff, ambled happily on the trails around our site at the Saddlehorn Campground at the Colorado National Monument. Maisie danced down dirt paths, her paws covered with the fine clay dust, staying just far enough away from the edge overlooking sandstone canyons and mesas and snow-covered jagged peaks.

Hours later, we pushed again, this time in Utah at Dead Horse State Park, just outside of Moab, where cowboys once steered wild mustangs into its dead end, a natural corral. Two-thousand-feet above the oh-so-green Colorado River with views of vertical cliffs and canyons, trail wove around the edge, up rocks and down dusty paths. Maisie was a champ.

“If only your Boardman Street neighbors could see you now,” I told her as she scrambled over a ledge. The neighbors who call her “Lazy Maisie.”

When we came to the intersection of shortening the jaunt or going for broke, we went for broke. The sun was out, the air had warmed, the rattlesnakes hid, and the dog was game. She padded along without complaint at the first detour – Meander Overlook – and even the second – Shafer Canyon Overlook. But when she realized that we realized we were lost (or as lost as you can be on a state park trail), she sniffed, then stopped, then did what she does best: plunked down.

Yet she rose and trotted on when we forged ahead, sticking close to our friend Jim, who had once offered her a peanut-butter pretzel. Maisie doesn’t forget a treat. Ever. Eventually, we found the trail, and the route back to the car. Four devices – iPhones, pedometers, watches – had four different mileages, but whether she walked 6 miles or 9, doesn’t matter. Lazy Maisie no more.

The next day in Moab, we headed to Fisher Towers for a 3-mile RT hike along the ridge overlooking Canyonlands National Park and towering sandstone cliffs and sculptures formed over the past 250 million years of wind and rain. We watched climbers ascend to the tippy top narrow point of a cliff so high one false step spelled doom. Instead, these intrepids would pose, hands stretched out for the belayer below to photograph. Then they’d descend and help the next one climb for the photo op. Brilliant sun. Deep blue sky. Rusty rocks and canyons. Maisie trotted on – until we turned around. Done, she said. In the clay dust she rested. Wouldn’t budge.

This is what we had feared for the months of planning this adventure. We adore our hound. Couldn’t imagine not sharing the road with her. But would she cooperate on the trails? We conceded that this trip wouldn’t allow for biking because of the dog, unless we put her on a kennel, which didn’t seem quite right. Hiking, though, she could do on canine-friendly trails. At home, she’ll bound happily anywhere off-leash. In the mornings, with some enticement, she’ll walk 4-5 miles on-leash, knowing that after a controlled walk through downtown, she’ll eventually enjoy a romp through some woods. Thousands of miles from her familiar stomping grounds, in the wilds of the west, would she be curious and trot on? Or would anxiety paralyze?

As we stared at her prone shape on the trail, we cajoled. We begged. Then we pulled out the dog treats.

That worked. For a few hundred yards. Then she’d stop. Jim, a former cross-country runner who was known as “Downhill Jimmy” for his speed on the descent, had raced ahead. We didn’t have pretzels and the kibble went only so far. Along came a group of high school students, most of whom stopped to pet her. She preened, delighted with the attention and the respite.

Revived, she agreed to walk on, stopping under a juniper’s shade or in the shadow of a rock. Alerted by a treat, off she’d go, calculating the shortest distance between two rocks, leaping like a race horse when she scented the finish line.

Her reward: a drive through Arches National Park and a nap on the cool cement floor of the Blu Pig’s covered patio in downtown Moab.

Lazy Maisie or Adventure Maisie?

Jury’s still out. Let’s see how she does as we drive south to Blanding.

Van Life Day 1: About the Weather

We had the option of a winterized van rental, but the prospect of brushing our teeth with antifreeze didn’t appeal. So we paid $245 to replace the pink toxin with water. How cold could the temps fall in late April and early May? What were the chances that the van’s pipes would freeze?

Plenty.

While Denver boasts 300+ days of sun each year, we hit clouds and damp and a bone-chilling cold that seemed more United Kingdom than Colorful Colorado.. Spring snowstorms happen, often into May, but the streets are dry and grass surfaces within hours under the intense brightness. Not so for the neophyte van voyagers.

We picked up our Thor Sequence in fog. Packed it up in drizzle. Drove to our friends Lorrie and Jim in the rain. And while we sipped Shiraz (don’t get excited- we’re all vaccinated) and slurped soup, snow fell. And fell.

We followed the instructions on How-to-Prevent-Van-Pipes-from-Freezing: plugged the van into our hosts electricity, turned on the tank heaters, and tried to find the interior furnace knob. It wasn’t on the main panel. Checked the manual – always good – but the featured illustration looked foreign. Crossed our fingers and went to bed, visions of thousands of dollar repair bills dancing in our heads.

The snow stopped. Six inches of wet slush. The van started. Good. Reread the manual and rewatched the instructional video for the 18th time. Aha! The water heater and furnace have a separate panel tucked in an overhead compartment behind the DVD player. Tried not to fume that two out of three resources – Rachel who checked us into the van and the manual – had not shared this little ingredient. Focused on the clicks, the turns, the heat. Success! An hour later, turned on the water pump – the test. Held our breath.

Gurgle. Cough. Whoosh.

Saved.

As we headed west over the frosted mountain landscape, past Breckinridge and Copper and Vail, awed by the grandeur, the snow-slathered peaks, we thanked the van gods for preventing Potential Crisis #1.

And we thought that the dog would create the narrative conflict.

Of Birthdays and Bison

It seemed, initially, that the highlight of Maisie’s first full day in Denver — son #1’s 28th birthday — would be the unimpeded access to Luke’s comfy couch. But then we walked her around nearby Sloan Lake and she thrilled at the infinite supply of goose poop.

That delight, however, was dwarfed by our afternoon visit to the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge.

Once the home of chemical weapons manufacturing, the site, comprising 15,000-acres of prairie, wetlands, and woods, is the poster child for toxic clean-up thanks to a coordinated effort between federal, state, and local agencies and a little help from Shell Oil Co. Under the leadership of US Fish & Wildlife, the area has become one of the nation’s largest urban refuges, home to 330 animal species.

We didn’t see any bald eagles, or coyotes, or burrowing oils. We did, however, drive past lots of deer grazing and prairie dogs poking their furry little heads up out of their holes and scampering through the high grass. Maisie barely raised her head – until she spotted the bison.

Our protector

Not even the walk under sunny skies along a prairie path outside of the refuge, nor the birthday celebration that followed, could compete.

Hotel Redemption, Cultural Failure

What’s not to like about Nebraska? The drivers for one. The speed (75 mph). The weaving. The blocking (that’s you Ms. Ponytail in the SUV with the YOLO sticker). Bostonians are meek in comparison.

Off the road, however, people are congenial, the terrain more rolling than Iowa, a state so flat you can see from one end to the other, and the Best Western in Omaha is a tidy and functioning version of its Mishawaka cousin. The pool had water. The gym was open. And breakfast! A cornucopia of cereals, fruit, and oatmeal. Even some microwave pancakes.

Most importantly, the stairs were carpeted, which freed Maisie from the dreaded elevator. She padded up and down, up and down, on our multiple trips to walk the empty strip malls surrounding the hotel.

The day’s Cultural Excursion, however, suffered defeat. The mission: peruse the Rose Wilder papers at the Herbert Hoover Museum in West Branch, Iowa. The woman behind the desk at the info center of the Hoover compound, a National Historic Site, was puzzled. She had never heard of the collection. “But even if it is there, it won’t do you much good,” she said. “The museum is closed until June.”

She offered to find a ranger to verify if the papers, which chronicle Wilder’s work with her famous mother, Laura Ingalls Wilder, on the Little House series, was indeed housed in the Hoover archives, but we declined. According to a recent story in the Boston Globe, Wilder and Hemingway are the only American writers whose papers are housed at presidential libraries. And that’s not fake news.

Maybe next time we’re in the neighborhood.

No Laura IngallsWilder insights, but a few miles west, we explored Bill’s childhood neighborhood. Since he left 50 years ago, a few new subdivisions have erupted and a field of prairie grass is a ball park. No complaints from the hound.

Hotel-Stay COVID Style

And we thought that the highlight of yesterday’s 438-mile drive would be the RV Hall o Fame in Elkhart, Indiana. In truth, it might have been if we had arrived more than 6-minutes before closing and didn’t sprint from the first rolling home – a covered wagon – to a 41-foot Winnebago complete with sofa. But what we’ll remember most about the day’s adventure is: The Best Western Plus in Mishawaka, IN.

In fairness, hotels have been bludgeoned by the pandemic. Limited guests. No make-your-own-waffle breakfast buffets. Locked pools. Locked gyms. Fortunes spent on hand sanitizer.

Our pet-friendly choice, found on the app BringFido, suffered a particular hit this week; the hotel housekeepers, a mother-daughter team, might have been exposed to COVID last weekend and remain at home in quarantine. Apparently, the BW has no back-up, the registration clerk said cheerfully as she processed our payment. This meant that no first floor rooms had been cleaned since Sunday. “Second or third floor?” she asked, adjusting her mask as it slipped south.

Second floor? With a dog?

Oh well. Another first. First hotel stay for Maisie. And First Elevator Ride.

Unnerved was she. Every ride. Scared of the moving door, she balked before entering, then bolted inside. She slipped when the box bumped into action and peeled out at the first sign of daylight.

She did, however, adore the wide open halls, the overflowing trash cans, the ground cigarette butts in the pet exercise square of grass, and, of course, the king bed.

When the housekeepers return, they will find a nice tip in Room 211. Maisie left more than enough fur to welcome them back.

If only our rental camper van were this sleek.

Breakfast of Champions care of Best Western Plus

She Loves Buffalo

Yesterday, she practically galloped on the Buffalo sidewalks, but after a night hanging with our pals Maureen and John Hurley, Maisie became so attached to her new surroundings, she did what she does best: stopped. Four paws cemented on the ground. Would not budge. Not even to tour an Olmstead parkway.