Getting Out of Dodge

On Friday we kicked off the holiday weekend by getting the heck out of town.  In the past we’ve tried to escape the 4th of July madness by going backpacking and it’s only in the past few years, in an effort to preserve Stan’s show coat, that we’ve stayed home.  This year, I came up with a different solution to evade the fireworks and a mini-vacation was born!

We started off our road trip with a stop at Beth’s house in Santa Rosa (roughly the halfway point of our drive) to let the dogs stretch their legs and visit with family.  Let’s see if you can keep this straight…Beth’s Maude is Max’s half-sister (different litters).  Beth’s Beatrix is Stanley’s littermate.  Maude is mother to Stanley and Beatrix.  Which makes Max uncle to both of them.  Two sets of siblings, uncle, niece, nephew…and one St Bernard.

Mostly there was a lot of this going on (FOUR dogs in that photo).

Cujo amused himself with digging out every available toy possible.

Next stop was the wonderful Anderson Valley Brewing Company.  No need to explain what we were doing here.

Finally , we arrived at our destination, the same small inn outside Mendocino where Jeff and I were married 3 years ago.

Mendocino is a neat little town on the northern coast of California.  They filmed “Murder, She Wrote” here, for those of you who are old enough to remember the show, because it resembles a small New England town.  The inn has two of the friendliest donkeys I’ve ever met (and I’ve met a lot of asses in my day….harharharhar).

It is very pet-friendly here with a large exercise meadow for the boys to frolic.

In between my workouts and every effort to exhaust the dogs, the plan for the weekend is lots and lots of relaxation.  So far, everyone is nice and tired after that drive!