Ms. M and Mr. B Hit the Open Road

While we'd been hoping to take a summer roadtrip with the pooches, we finally found our chance. We had a newly born nephew, so we packed up the pooches to drive down to St. Louis for the weekend.

Ms. M needed to enjoy her last few moments of Chicago air, before we set off on I-55 for the next several hours. Because of Reggie's great road tripping post and all the informative comments, we felt fairly prepared for this road trip. All the rest stops had this dog friendly area for the pooches to stretch, have dinner and take a restroom break.

This was our first time staying in a hotel with the pooches, and we were a bit nervous there might be breed restrictions. Luckily, Go Pet Friendly.com had this great post write up about the pet friendly Drury Hotels. We gave the Drury Plaza Hotel in Chesterfield a call and asked if there were any breed restrictions and to our surprise, they were excited to have our two pit bulls stay at their hotel. The hotel was great and very accommodating. They had free wifi, free hot breakfast, free drinks and food in the evening and even poop bags out in their large outdoor area. All of the staff was very friendly and most of the other patrons were excited to meet the pooches, probably because Mr. B decided to carry his big red stuffed bone on all his potty breaks.

We were also very excited to meet our longtime blog friend Mary. Mary was one of our first blog friends (back when Two Pitties was 'writing to the crickets') so we were super-excited to meet everyone in person. The infamous Levi with his gorgeous eyes:

And newly-adopted Neptune (Tuna!) who is completely goofy and laid back:

It was funny meeting a blog friend in person, because I felt like I already knew so much about their family and the pooches. And as they're expecting a baby in October, I'm looking forward to reading more about balancing dogs and kids in the city. She is very inspirational! The pooches too hit it off right away, even sharing a drink at one of the many doggie water fountains:

Levi and Neptune continued the tour of their amazing park: a Victorian gem commissioned in the 1800's complete with fountains, pavilions, wading pools, and even a Clydesdale.

The pooches walked very nicely together as a pack as if they were long-lost friends.

Luckily for us, Miss M and Mr. B were exhausted for the ride home, here they are sharing either side of the pillow.

P.S. We're very excited to have dog walking club back this week, with a new process to help out my inbox.

1) Please RSVP by Thursday whether you will be coming to dog club. Even if you did tell me before, I might not remember. When you email put "Dog Walking Club" in the header.

2) We've been thinking of switching up the locations, and this weekend we will be trying Skokie Sculpture Park.

3) New attendees, I will need your photos and bios by Thursday morning.

We're looking forward to Sunday's walk!

Ms. M and Mr. B Travels: Complete Details Tomorrow

Just back from traveling and meeting new friends, more details in tomorrow's post.

A Brief Interlude...

 This past week, E and I were lucky enough to jet away to Tulum, Mexico for some much needed sunshine and warm weather.
--And much like we make preparations to keep our lights on so people don't realize we're gone, we also leave our blog "on" so people don't know our place is empty--
We have found Tulum to be the perfect antidote to city living. The beaches are not crowded; there are groupings of cabanas along the beachfront which are all eco-friendly. We stayed at Playa Mambo which has a cluster of 8 thatched roof cabanas. It's cozy and rustic and everyone is very, very nice. Plus, we were only a 20 second walk to the beach. We even had our own beach-dog "Molly".

We spent the time enjoying the sunshine and playing with our cameras.

Meanwhile, we came home to some very tired pooches. They also had a 'vacation' where they lived at their daycare. They spent a couple of days looking like this:

Travel: "She Said" Best of Portugal

Whenever E and I travel, we have "dueling cameras" to capture our different viewpoints. While E shared his favorite parts of Portugal, here is a collection of my highlights:
Portugal feels like a storybook country with painted castles:

 And quaint villages:

But contain more captivating, sordid tales of royal assassinations and marriages of 10-year-old Kings to their 8-year-old cousins. It's similar to San Francisco with its winding roads and hills where you're rewarded with amazing panoramic views:

And even a bridge similar to the Golden Gate Bridge:

And with all the walking and climbing you're justified in downing several of their famous pasteis de nata tarts each day:

I loved the ocean-side aspect of seeing fresh fish in windowshops:

Traveling to the boca de inferno:

And seeing one of the biggest oceanariums in Europe. Their aquariums are the size of 4 Olympic-size swimming pools. Can you guess which one is E?

And of course the omnipresent pictures of E reading maps:

We planned this trip as a type of 'belated-honeymoon' after our elopement. But it was extra celebratory because after waiting 7 months for them to score the results, I found out I passed and I am a National Board Certified Teacher! This is an intensive, rigorous, mind-blowing process; less than 3% of teachers in the nation have reached this status.
We were lucky to have such an amazing trip, and I was glad to take it with my favorite person.

Travel: "He Said" Best of Portugal

We left the United States and spent our Thanksgiving out in Portugal. Originally, I planned to surf for a week in Peniche, Portugal, but I couldn't get over my cold before our trip. So instead of surfing, I spent time traveling around the surrounding areas of Lisbon with A. 

This was my first time to Europe, so I wasn't sure of what to expect. Though I have seen some of the sights online and in travel books, everything seemed so much grander when I saw them in person. One of the hard things was navigating through the streets to see the sights and sounds of Lisbon.

Sadly, I spent some of my time looking at maps to get us from one monument to another and

even to the majestic Lisbon Oceanarium.

Since we were lost half the time, we walked almost every inch of Lisbon and pretty much saw everything the city had to offer and made quite a few friends, including this little guy.

We also checked out some castles and took pictures of their main inhabitants.

Though the trip was initially planned as a surf excursion, I had a great time exploring the city and surrounding areas, day and night,

taking impromptu photo booth pictures,

 and just spending time getting lost with A.

Travel: Camping in Lake Geneva in 10 Pictures

Earlier this week we packed up the car to go camping up in beautiful Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. The last time we went car camping was when we drove to Kalamazoo, Michigan to adopt Mr. B. Even though we haven't used the tent in a few years it was still relatively easy to set up and had ample room for all four of us. Here is a nice snapshot of the tent Mr. B took with his camera.

The tent has this nice extension that allows us to store gear outside the tent, but covered from the elements.

The pooches chose to use it as shelter from the sun and a place to hang out while A and I sat by the fire at night. It was nice because the pooches could come and go as they pleased.

Since we were in the woods, the extension also gave the pooches shelter from the mosquitos. A great shot of the woods that surrounded us from Mr. B's camera.

There was plenty of room in the tent for all four of us. We probably could have fit two more dogs or another person.

We think this brought Mr. B flashbacks about his first 24 hours with us.

Ms. M felt right at home in the tent, especially since her bed was all set up for her.
Except at one point she kept looking out longing and whining. We thought she really had to go potty,

but it looked like all she wanted to do was eat the tall vegetation.

Travel: Daily Walk in 10 Pictures 08.18.10

Though a lot of hotels in Manuel Antonio boasted that we will see monkeys from our window, we mainly saw a lot of these giant spiders. We saw more interesting animals on the streets of Costa Rica than in the rainforest. This dog lived in a house near one of our hotels and he looked a lot like Ms. M. He even lazed around all day like her.

Everywhere we went, especially in Manuel Antonio and Quepos, we saw dogs just laying around or walking about and hanging out with other dogs.
This dog was passed out in the middle of the bus terminal and he didn't even move when people were standing all around him.
We hardly ever see Dalmatians where we live, but we saw quite a few in Costa Rica and one even lived at the firehouse in Quepos.

There were dogs that would walk around everywhere in Manuel Antonio and we thought they were strays like the one below, but then we would see them in front of a house or beckoning to someone's call. Jorge from the Toucan Rescue Ranch told us that many people let their dogs run free and the dogs come back home at night.

A loved this dog because she spent all day jumping in the waves and we saw her the next day back on the beach playing and jumping in the waves again.

We saw several small pet shops in La Fortuna and Quepos that had small puppies for sale. Strange thing is that we think we saw two dogs that looked exactly the same as the ones below in cage in front of someone's house.

When we were looking for a hotel in Manuel Antonio, we kept seeing what looked like the same cat in every hotel that we visited. A thinks that the cats were all from the same litter and they were given as a gift to each hotel.
We did see these really colorful crabs in the rainforest.