Well folks, it is Memorial Day, 2018. I’ve posted my video to commemorate memorial day, and have done my part around the local cemeteries. We actually filmed most of the video about Salisbury, North Carolina and the civil war cemetery way back at the beginning of the month. Caesar and I went on an exploration trip and went to a number of cemeteries and veteran organizations around the Salisbury area.The actual clips of Caesar took up about 10 minutes of the original video, but it was his last real outing and it really showed him falling down and not being able to stay up on his front paws. So when I got the video of the “Ride of Pride” trucks, I decided to substitute that for the Caesar video. I originally thought it would be fitting to have Caesar in my memorial day video as a memorial to him. But I did a full memorial video for Caesar so I guess it’s okay to pull him out, especially since he wasn’t at his peak as he would not have wanted to be seen as an invalid.

But life goes on, and we survive, even though it feels like a great void. Originally I wasn’t sure how Dakota would react. I used to say that when it was just Caesar and Dakota, that they would probably have to go together because the one wouldn’t last very long without the other. But since we have Bonnie hanging out with us while my niece is here, Dakota has seemed more interested in her than Caesar. But now that Caesar is gone I see Dakota sniffing around and looking for his little buddy.  So I know he misses him. Bonnie will be leaving us around June 15. Luckily my son has asked me to watch his puppy, a 2-year-old Pitbull who gets along with Dakota very well, for a couple of weeks just after Bonnie leaves. So he’ll still have a friend to visit with and eat with. One of the things that I’ve noticed with Dakota, is that he’s not interested in eating unless somebody is there with them. So unless I’m feeding him something really good like hamburger, I he doesn’t want to eat or be left eating alone. The boys, of course, were always fed together, and while Caesar would wolf down his food like a Hoover vacuum cleaner, Dakota would wander back and forth from his bowl to Caesar’s bowl just to make sure Caesar wasn’t getting anything extra special. So right now Dakota is getting his regular dog food that he’s had for the last 12 years and a fairly generous scoop of turmeric rice and hamburger mixed in. That’s a recipe I have found is a very good supplement for upset stomachs or diarrhea. The only problem with that is that the turmeric stains the aluminum rice cooking pan yellow/orange. My sons then have a problem using the pan for anything else. It’s a trade-off I’ll live with.

So the current plan is the pick up the new puppy when my sons pitbull goes back to his house. Roughly the of the Fourth of July. Not sure how much I’ll be able to put together for a puppy video that early but I’m sure I’ll have puppy videos by the end of July. My fear is that people will see that I’m posting puppy videos and want to not watch them for a couple of weeks and then binge watch them so they can see the puppy grow up quickly. I’m also concerned because I don’t want to turn my channel into a puppy training channel. I think I’m going to try to do 3 to 5 minutes of puppy progress on each new video. That way we can maintain our regular travel subject matter line and still develop the puppy into the traveling companion that he will be. And I don’t want to push Dakota out of the video process, but Dakota turns 12 June 1st and has really slowed down quite a bit as far as his desire to do a lot. He still loves to go places, and tries to jump in the car every time I open the doors, but a two-mile hike and he’s huffing and puffing pretty good. The interesting thing about Dakota is that even when he was 3 years old and in top shape, he never pushed himself even a little unless he really had to, and he’s never required any of my help unless I want him to go faster than he wants to. But when Dakota’s time is up, there will be no replacement. It’s kind of been part of the plan from the initial inception of the channel. The plan was to drop down to one dog and move over to a regular fully contained RV. Most likely a class C. I’ve been watching the ads for a slightly used and well-maintained motorhomes for about 6 months now. And I’ve seen a few that I wouldn’t mind owning, but I don’t think I’m really ready yet. I truly do love having the Aliner and the flexibility it gives me. Especially when I’m going to places that have bathroom facilities I can use, or it is a wild enough place I don’t need bathroom facilities. So that’s catching you up for the current plan. In the meantime, while I execute that plan over the next 4 weeks, I’ll be trying to get grass to grow, weeds to die, and mud to dry up into nice walkable dirt. So stay tuned. We will probably be doing some local videos while we babysit or we might even miss a week. But we will be back!  So keep an eye open for me. Thanks for stopping by.