Lexi & Dover’s Big Adventure

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day. This National holiday, observed each year on the fourth Thursday in November, is traditionally set aside for time with family and giving thanks for our wonderful lives in this great land. And more and more, being with family on Thanksgiving inevitably involves some degree of travel. And so following with tradition, I thought it most fitting to publish my first family travel post with a wonderful memory of last year’s Thanksgiving adventure.

Virtually all of our travel in the past twenty-five years has been with our children. Except, I guess for a return trip to London and Paris, a long awaited reunion of sorts, following our last payment on our last student loan that subsidized my studies abroad a dozen years before. So we’ve traveled some, well actually a lot, as a family but we never really traveled much with our two dogs, Lexi and Dover. They’d make the 2-hour trip to Grand Island to spend holidays and other special occasions with their “grandparents”. And periodically they would pack up their beds and bowls for a week or so at “Grandpa Camp” while Denise and I and the girls would be off on vacation. But they were never much for travel and so it never occurred to us to attempt any cross-country driving with these two in tow. Nor had it occurred to us to prepare a good excuse not to. So when K suggested that we load up a couple of last-minute stowaways and deliver a Thanksgiving surprise to her sister in South Bend we thought the ordeal to be simple enough and so in they went and off we were.

I must say that “Lexi and Dover’s Big Adventure” was indeed both big and adventurous.

The adventure began with lunch to go at a sandwich shop only a few blocks from home. As we maneuvered our car from the parking lot Lexi decided, without warning, to leap over the back seat and onto the full soda cups and fresh sandwiches. Upon calming of dog and suppression of words (actually a mixture of equal parts laughter and cursing), we assessed the damage and proceeded directly to the grocery across the street to procure wipes and towels in anticipation of any future adventurous behavior.

We traveled due east from Omaha, Nebraska across the Missouri River, through the state of Iowa, across the Mississippi River and into Illinois. We skirted the edge of Chicago and then proceeded into Indiana.

We spent an adventurous night in a hotel in South Bend where two dogs enjoyed an evening of spender that included several parking lot island sniffs and many simple to chew miniature ice cubes that popped magically from a noisy machine to two waiting mouths thus to satisfy their ever eager canine anticipation in glorious fashion. The evening concluded with wonderous slumber in their very own queen bed.

The next morning began early with a quick sniff and go and we were back on the road. We continued on through Indiana, touched into Ohio and then proceeded northward into Michigan. Our destination was Farmington Hills. This is a wonderful community just northwest of Detroit proper that is home to 84,000 residents including the family of MM, one of M's close friends at ND, and where M had been welcomed as a Thanksgiving guest. At a distance of approximately 750 miles (1,200 kilometers) and accounting for speed and the occasional stop and sniff, we overcame this distance in a matter of 13 hours of road time.

The surprise was incredibly successful. M and friends were overwhelmed with the thrill of four pointy white ears and black eyes eagerly peering out through the windows of the car. There were hugs and licks all around…a special moment indeed. Nice idea K.

Surprise and adventures notwithstanding, this cross country journey went remarkably well considering long travel with two anxious hairy dogs, contained within a small vehicle and propelled in a cloud of white hair through five states and two time zones…and back. I recall suggesting that perhaps next time we would throw in three or four live chickens to liven up the trip!

Gazing thought the car windows Lexi and Dover witnessed much new countryside, many fueling travelers, a small fire, two cats, four deer, some construction workers and toll booth attendants, three traveling Thanksgiving floats and a horse and buggy! They traversed several river bridges, endured a bumpy gravel road, ate fast food like real travelers, enjoyed their own bed in our hotel, went outside for their midnight “business” (with their “dad” who wasn’t too happy about it), delivered the Thanksgiving surprise of their presence, met a young man from Maryland and a family from Michigan. They toured the Notre Dame campus and received much attention from many young collage students who missed the touch of their own dogs. They smelled lots and lots of new stuff and “marked their territory” in five new states.

And when it was through, they returned home knowing they had just experienced the adventure of their lives.