So far I have:

• gotten gas at $1.999
• Voted (love that early voting
• got worm meds for all the dogs and got merlin home to recover from his teeth cleaning
• purchased some beer and other booze to take down to NM
• Went to the store for a few things
• picked up my Satan suit from the cleaners
• cleaned out the litterboxes, and had the garbage bag break open on me. YUCK!

Now Ijust need to pack all the stuff I am taking tomorrow and get all ready to go.
Hopefully I can get everything ready except for hiching up the trailer, and then leave somewhere around 7amish.
It’s supposed to be windy and rainy, which is not going to be fun towing a trailer.

Well, looks like Nash has some roundworms going on, so I get to pick up some de-wormer for all the pups. Hopefully they will handle that ok while on our travels.

Also this morning I noticed Merlin had a loose tooth when I was brushing his teeth. So, he’s scheduled now to go in for a dental tomorrow.
I always hate to have them put under, and I have been putting off a cleaning for Merlin for quite a while now. I sure hope it all goes ok, and that he’s ok with travel the very next day. I suspect he will just sleep in the car anyhow though.

I left the pups in the trailer for about an hour today (with the a/c on). They seemed to do just fine hanging out in there while I was gone, although when I got back Nash started barking lots. He does that when I get back to the house too, so hopefully thats normal.

Still have a ton of things to do before hitting the road Wed morning. Hope I can get most of it done…

Yesterday I managed to get a bit of cleaning done and go up to the CGC dinner/meetup. It was fun to catch up with some folks that I don’t see very often and hear all the fun hound stories. A good time was had by all.

Today I started getting the trailer a bit more ready for my upcoming trip. I am heading out Wednesday to go down to the annual halloween party and then the following week I will be heading up into the Gila Wilderness to go deer hunting with a good friend of mine. Should be a fun time all around. I will of course be taking the pups along. I am pretty sure kurt and merlin will be perfectly happy if they have a soft place to hang out that they know somewhat (the trailer). Nash I am a little worried about, since he’s never spent too much time away from a yard to run around in and burn off some energy in. Hopefully he will do ok with some long walks.

Today I: Emptied out the grey/black tanks. Filled the fresh water tank and got all my filter and hoses all fixed up and spooled up. Reorganized stuff in the outside storage, checked to see which folding crate I could easily get in there for Nash (the x-large one will fit, but makes it very hard to access anything while it’s up. The small one fits on the ‘couch’ in the back of the trailer. It’s a bit cramped for Nash, but I think it will work for this trip at any rate), got oil and gas into the portable honda generator I got a while ago and tested it (At least here it has enough power to run the a/c, which is good), Checked on the small heater I have been using in the trailer to keep the water lines from freezing (it’s doing great).

Upcoming tomorrow: work, need to pick up some beers for the beer tasting thursday night, some dog food and a new tag for Nash, find a cat sitter, and then the weekly GURPs game.

Hopefully I can get everything ready to be gone for 2 weeks by Wed.

Just weighed Nash a while ago…

49lbs.

He’s going to be a big boy.

I’ve been remiss in posting pictures of Mr Nash, so here’s a few from the last few days…

We went to petsmart the other day and Nash wanted to play with one of the kittens in the kitten enclosure.
The kitten really wanted to play with him too.

The other day my cable was down, and when I went out to the store I saw why.
They had em working in shifts!

Look how big nash is next to kurt now.

Look at the happy nash tounge.

Two happy dogs.

Well, headed out today for a shakedown cruise with the new trailer.
I decided to just go to the castle rock campground, since they had hookups, a dog park, and were only an hour away.

I had a bit of annoyance getting hiched.. had to move small amounts back and forth until I got it right. Then, I managed to scrape
the awning a bit on my gate getting out of the side yard. ;( Oh well. It’s very small damage.

Once I hit the road things were smooth. There was a bit of wind, but the trailer had no problems. I did get going about 70mph at some points (didn’t want to get too close to the other traffic witch was kinda heavy) and there were no issues.

The campground people were nice and friendly. I pulled into my spot and looked at hooking everything up:

Power: no problem. Just a plug. Worked great.
Water: Hooked up my pressure control value, hose, filter, to my “shore water” plug, and got nothing. Not sure right now if thats due to the pressure value messing up somehow, or if there is something broken with their water pump. ;( Perhaps I will look more in the morning.
Sewer: no luck. I got a 10′ sewer hose and a fitting from the dealer, and another bit mail order, but there are several issues here: The sewer connector is more than 10′ away. The fittings are not compatible. Oh well.
Wireless: works fine, although I had to monkey with things to register on the stupid click thru page.

Nash was kinda a pest at first, but finally relaxed after a few walks.

I think things are going to work out nicely with it. With any luck I would be in this very campground next year for faire.

Man did I get a pile of packages today. Most everything I ordered via mail order in the last few weeks picked today to arrive on.
Trailer Dolly, microwave, hitch lock, coffee pot, etc. Tomorrow the generator shows up.
The one thing I am lacking is a folding crate for nash to use in the trailer. I looked at petsmart today, but they are more the 2X what they would
cost on-line. ;( Guess I will order one and see how he does without this weekend.

The boys, just hanging out in the doggie bunker after a walk.

Here you can see how over large the x-pens I got are. They are the 48″ ones, when I should have probibly gotten the 36″ ones.
(This is 2 of the 8panel ones hooked together. You can hook them easily, but you have to disconnect them to transport them).

The A/C unit of DOOM. I did figure out that I wasn’t adjusting it right, so I can now get it to now totally freeze everything solid in a few minutes.

I’m going to go down to the castle rock camground this weekend (unless they are already full). Probibly head down saturday afternoon and back home sunday afternoon. Should be a good place for a shakedown voyage of the doggie bunker. It’s about an hour from here, has wireless and all the hookups. They also have a (small) dog park too.

Anyone reading this is welcome to come on down and tent camp or whatever. Drop me an email if interested.

I have made a point of hanging out in the trailer with the pup for a few hours every day to get them used to it.
They seem to be liking it pretty well so far. Nash does get a bit hyper on occasion, but then he’s a puppy.

The a/c in the doggie bunker works really well. Far too well. Even on low it cools everything to meat locker temps in a few minutes.
I guess it would be more useful in the summer.

I have a bunch of mail order stuff coming in this week for the trailer: A trailer dolly, a convection microwave, 12v crock pot and all sorts
of nick nacks. Should be nice to get all that stuff in and stocked. Probibly will go on a shakedown trip next weekend.
Perhaps I should just make a reservation at the campground down by the faire. I know they have hookups and wireless… and a dog park.

Friday was nice and busy. Went down and picked the trailer. The guy who was doing the walkthrough with me was an ex greyhound owner. His hound had lived to 15 and passed away recently. The only snag I noticed was that they didn’t have a wheel on the tounge jack as I was hoping. They said that they would have to order one, which was anoying. After the walk through, I went over to the dealer to do the paperwork and he scrounged me up a wheel, which was nice of him.

Had no trouble with the tow back home. I noticed the tailer was there when going over bumps and the like, and the brake controller took some fiddling with to get it right. At first it was grabbing pretty hard and pulling when slowing down.

Unfortunately, my neighbor accross the street decided friday was a great day for a yard sale. So, when I got back there were tons of morons parking all over the place making it impossible to try and back the trailer in. So, I just parked down the street a few blocks and waited for the yard sale to get over with. My neighbor regained some karma by coming over and helping direct me. We had it pretty much ready to go all the way into the side yard, but I decided to leave it out for now while I am stocking it and such.

Then, right after parking it was off to down south for a puppy play time/dinner. It was great to see T and T and T’s parents. We had 7 hounds there.
Nash and Maisey (the other pup, who is about a month younger than nash) had a lovely time playing and running and such. The food was excellent and very nice surroundings and company. Hopefully we can all get together more often. Nash did manage to pull a lamp over once we moved inside, but luckily the only thing that was hurt was a lightbulb and kurts phobias.

Saturday I took the pups out to the doggie bunker for the first time to see what they would think…

My not too great, but ok parking job. The back right wheel is kinda in a low point, so it’s not 100% level…
but it will do for now.

The view in the door. Across to the “couch” and the door to the bathroom on the left.

The view from the back to the front. The dinette table comes off and you can turn that area into a queen sized bed.
There is a bunk up over it as well (weight limit 210lbs)

The view back to the bathroom. It’s microscopic, but should work.

With the uncanny ability of the greyhound, kurt finds the couch…

Hounds everywhere.

Merlin says: “Hey, how did kurt get the couch?”

After hanging out in the trailer for a while, I ran out and had a far too expensive target run to get some things to stock it.
It’s basically like setting up a new house.

Sunday was nice and relaxed. Took the dogs out for a few hours to hang out in the trailer.
The a/c in there works really really well. On low it would take it down to frigid in about 10min.

Placed an amazon and campingworld order for a bunch of other junk I need before hitting the road.
(convection microwave, trailer dolly, hitch lock, leveling blocks. and various other nick nacks)

Looking forward to getting it on the road next weekend…