A Week of Interesting Adventures

It has been a week since our last post. Wow! A whole week. Seems like only several days. I must say this past week has been very... well... interesting. Most of our time is consumed with Guinness. Most of our time? Should I say 24/7? We have decided that having a puppy like Guinness, a very smart puppy, is like having a newborn baby. A new born baby, however, wears diapers. I guess we could put him in diapers, but we see that as a cop out.

He sleeps well and, from day one, through the night with only one outing per evening. No accidents there, yet. His house breaking is progressing. He is not there, but better each day. He has picked up the "sit" command very well and the "no" exceptionally well. His play time is a ball for both of us. We sit for hours watching his antics. He is such a comic. We are truly blessed with Guinness. He has filled an empty spot in our lives and his unconditional dependency on us makes us both realize we still have something to give in these later years.


He is definitely going to be an outside type of dog. He loves it in the woods and he is great on his leash, even when squirrels are around. He is getting very used to the truck and looks as if he will love traveling. That was one of our concerns since we are always on the go. And did I mention he has grown a bunch just in this past week? His little harness is already tight and we had to let it out. This past week has been very interesting.

Besides tomorrow being a new day it is going to be a new environment. Schedule calls for us to be up early, pack up, hook up and travel to the Jacksonville Naval Air Station RV Park in Florida. That will be our home for the next two weeks. It will be a test for Guinness. New everything except his home on wheels.

It has been an excellent time to introduce him to things. Here at Ft. Stewart the 3rd Infantry Division was having their annual Brigade Competitions. This pits the Division's three brigades against each other in what the do best. Shoot. Shoot all kinds of things to include BIG cannons. Oh! The ranges are only a few miles from us. So....lots of big noises. He got used to them real quick. When one of the cannon volleys go off in the middle of the night....not a budge. He ignores all the small arms firing. Such a trooper.

Weather has been great. The past few days have been close to 80F/26C. Looks like it will be that way fro the next 3-4 days then a cold spell.....down in the 60s. Na-a-a-y-y-y. Gonna hate to go back north again.

Hope all is well with everyone. We are doing fine. Hopefully, I will update a bit more frequently from this point on. Tally Ho!!!

Guinness is Home!!!!!!!

Yep, home safe and sound. We departed for Simpsonville, SC this morning at 6 AM to pick up Guinness. Simpsonville is the home of Mountain Creek Doodles. We stopped a few places to do a bit of shopping before we arrived at Mountain Creek, but we were on time for our scheduled 12 PM pick up. After spending some time with Robyn, Tom and Guinness' Mom, Lucy, we headed out in a terrific downpour. Made no difference. Guinness was with us.

The trip back took almost 6 hours. The rain stayed with us all the way although not as bad as the first couple of hours. As we were passing through Clinton, SC, we heard on the radio there was a tornado on the ground a mile or so from us. We were on I-26 heading east and the rain was so hard most people were pulling off the road. Even the truckers. I have been through some heavy rain while driving over the years, but this had to be one of the worst. It kinda let up after we passed Columbia and continued as light rain the rest of the way. Something to remember the day by.

This puppy is awesome. We have a doggy booster seat between us and he spent half of the trip in the seat and the other half in Joyce's lap. About two hours into the trip he lost his fear and became very curious of the surroundings. He started watching the trucks and cars passing by.

We stopped several times and each time, once he was placed on the ground, he did his potty and was ready to get back in the truck. What a trooper and traveler. He is going to do well.

When we got back to the trailer, Joyce gave him some water and dinner. Potty again. Man these little cuties go often. Just as I remembered my kids doing.

There has been lots of play time and several naps. We are about to wake him again and walk him a bit for his last nightly excursion before bed. We put him in a small harness and he has already adapted very well to a leash. I am sure he will be up tonight and we have prepared ourselves for that. We intend to take him out every 3 hours or so. Now the training begins. We are so happy.

Tomorrow's the Day

When we arrived here in Savannah, we had several things we had to accomplish before we could pick up Guinness. We were able to do everything in several days and that left the rest of the week open. We called Mountain Creek Doodles to see if we could pick up Guinness before Saturday. They are a busy family with 17 puppies to look after, not to mention two young children in school. We just received a call from them (8:45PM) and they asked if we could be there at noon tomorrow, Dec 11th. Think we'll sleep much tonight?

It is a four and a half hour drive to Greenville, SC from here so we want to be on the road by 6 AM. Not a problem. Calling for stormy weather tonight and tomorrow, but who cares. We're going to take lots of pictures of the event so look for them soon. Whooo Hooooo!!!!!!!

Honey...We're Home

Seems that way anyhow. We started out for Georgia yesterday at 4:30 AM and arrived at the Ft. Stewart RV park at 4:15 PM. Traffic was light and the weather clear and cold. We had to stop at our storage facility to pick up our 5th wheel hitch and a few other items and then to the RV storage to hook up. The RV storage is adjacent to the RV park. Once we hooked up we went to our assigned pad which was directly across from the pad we had this past summer. You remember, the one with all the rattlesnakes. Also, the one that had the over-hanging tree that destroyed our awning. Well, the curse of Pad #3 still haunts us.

Our assigned Pad #2 is very hard to get into because the way the "engineers", gimme a break, designed it. To get in, you first have to pull part way into Pad #3, remember the rattlesnakes, and then back in. Well....no problem. Pad #3 was empty so we pulled part way in and lined up. Whoops!!! Big problem. Since we left last August, the "engineers", gimme a break, put in new electric pedestals. A big improvement over the electric boxes that were laying on the ground. These pedestals accommodate electric, water, telephone and cable TV. But, the only thing they hooked up was the electric. They left the water spigot laying on the ground.This is a "government" installation, remember?

You getting the picture yet? Water spigot on the ground. Me into the site trying to back a 34 foot trailer into a pad that is designed for a 12 foot pop-up? And it is almost dark? You got it. Ran over the spigot and broke it off. Water, water everywhere and not a drop for anyone occupying pad #3.

I finally got the trailer onto our pad and went to the camp host to explain the situation. Thank God he was reasonable and sympathetic. In fact, he called the Ft. Stewart plumbers and they came out to shut off the water on the pad. All it cost was the campground without water for 30 minutes and a red face. No eggs were thrown. Today, they came back to put another spigot in. On the new pedestal???? Gimme a break. That job is for someone else. The curse of Pad #3 goes on.

We spent today setting up and calming down from the previous day. Twelve hours on the "Highway of Death"(seen that analogy before?) and the events that followed wore us out. The next few days will be trying to relax, getting things ready for Guinness and generally enjoying the Christmas season. More to come.......

Nine days and counting.

Another Puppy Video

Mountain Creek has placed another video on their web site. It is so wild. Guinness is in there somewhere.

It has been rainy and cold all day. Was a good day to kick back. Veronica and Brandon left early this morning and we just relaxed after that. They wore us out. Guess we are not as spry as we once were. Oh, well.

We spent yesterday morning at the Anne Arundel Youth Football Associations' 2008 Championships. Why you ask? Well, one of our grandsons, Shane, was playing in one of the championship playoff games. He plays in the 80 Pound League and is an offensive tackle. These kids were awesome. The parents were going wild. Closing my eyes, I could see ourselves at a high school or college football game. And to top it all off, they played at the U.S. Naval Academy Stadium in Annapolis. It was a clear, crisp day and the excitement was everywhere. Quite the event. They lost though. But they played one heck of a game to try and beat their opponents. As they grow older and if they keep up their training, they will be awesome in high school and college. What was more amazing was how their coaches talked to them. I can see why they are a championship team. Great kids and terrific coaches.

We now have a match to the name Guinness and a puppy. This is a picture of him at 4 weeks old. He was 5 weeks old yesterday. We made the decision today and, at present, we pick him up at 11 AM on December 13th. The excitement mounts.

Today marks the official beginning of this years Christmas Season. OK, call me politically incorrect, insensitive, whatever, but I refuse to use the term Holiday Season. To me it has, and will always be, the Christmas Season. Since today is Black Friday(click here to see the origin of the term), and we live near a large shopping mall, we will make sure we stay off the main roads today. Hopefully, we will have no need to go out at all.

Our Thanksgiving, yesterday, was very quiet for the two of us. We spent the morning preparing the turkey breast and other fixin's, ate an early meal, then relaxed with some reading, soothing music, some internet research and James Bond movies. Today and the rest of the weekend, however, will be a bit livelier when Veronica and Brandon show up this afternoon. Just gonna hang out and do some cooking.

Our excitement, being generated by the upcoming arrival of Guinness, has brightened up our Christmas spirit quite a bit. He will be five weeks old tomorrow and we will take him home with us two weeks from that. Our house looks like a pet store with all the toys, wire and travel kennels, and other puppy items about. We have also been watching every episode of Victoria Stillwell's It's Me or the Dog airing on the Animal Planet channel. This woman is amazing with her knowledge of training dogs. We'll make sure we post how Guinness' training proceeds. Did I mention we are excited?

We are making final preparations for our annual trip south next week. Most items have been gathered. Just need to wash and prepare the truck, load it and hit the road. Not going to be a camping trip like Maine/Canada was. It will be more comfortable this time. We'll pick up the fifth wheel where it is stored in Georgia, stay there for two weeks, head to Jacksonville for two weeks, back to Georgia for a few days, then back to Maryland. That is always the hardest part. Maybe we can get there permanently by next spring.

Puppy Video

Mountain Creek Doodles are the most awesome family we have seen when it comes to breeders of Labradoodles. They have posted a new video of Lucy's litter and Guinness is in there somewhere. Aren't they the cutest? Can't wait to pick him up. They are growing so fast.