Family Vacation

We are on vacation.

Uncle Theo has invited us to spend a few weeks at his farm near Pixley. He said the dogs might enjoy the country, and him and I  might do some fishing.

Might? My Uncle Theo is a redneck. So when he says we "might" it means we "will" be doing some fishing.

And there will be some alcohol involved.

Regular readers of this blog are familiar with my uncle - I've mentioned my Uncle several times on this blog. 

I asked the dogs if the wanted to go, and they liked the idea. They have never seen a real farm before, so they were stoked about the trip - especially Reba who was excited about getting to see some real cows. She'd only seen cows on TV and had always wanted to see real ones.

Reba is only year and a half, and small children (and puppies) get excited about such things.

We began our journey Monday morning, around 9:30. After a hearty breakfast of bacon and eggs, oatmeal...

(Reba likes oatmeal)

...toast (apple butter on mine, plain butter for the dogs) and coffee (me only, dogs don't do coffee), we gathered up our luggage and loaded it in the trunk of the car, then loaded in ourselves.

No sooner than we got seated, and were preparing to start out, Reba announced that she needed to go potty.

Well, at least she didn't wait until we were on the highway.

Those who have kids, human or canine, are no doubt familiar with the phenomenon of juvenile bladders, and the increased likelihood of needing to pee as the length of the road trip increases. The age of the child also factors into the equation, with younger childs being more likely to make this announcement.

So I exited the vehicle, let Reba out, and she ran around the house to the designated potty spot. After she did her business, she returned to her car.

I asked if anyone else needed to go. Freedom and Sarah said they did, exited the vehicle, and went around back to the potty spot.

Macky Rae remained in the car, reading one of his comic books.

"Do you need to go?" I asked him.

"No, I am OK" he answered.

I stared at him for a couple of moments, giving him "the look" until he finally glanced up from his comic.

"Well..." he said "Maybe I do" and got out, likewise heading to the potty spot.

It take just under 3 and a half hours to drive from my home to uncle Theo's farm (not counting potty stops and lunch breaks), which isn't that long until you realize that's about 24 hours in dog time.

24 hours of whining, of bickering, of "stop touching me"...

24 hours of Reba asking "Are we there yet?" - This began as soon as I pulled out into the street, and was asked on the average of every 42 minutes.

For the first 35 minutes we were able to entertain ourselves by listening 108.5 FM (the "classic" rock station) until we got too far and the signal faded, and had to switch to CDs. Macky brought his CD collection, which consisted primarily of hard rock and heavy metal - which was totally unacceptable by Freedom (who prefers jazz and R&B) and Sarah (who preferred pop and country/western). They began bickering about what CDs should (and shouldn't) be played until I threatened to pull over and swat all three of them on the nose with a magazine.

We wound up listening to Reba's "favoritest" (and only) CD, a compilation of cute dog and puppy songs.

The other dogs were not pleased, but me and Reba enjoyed it.

We stopped for lunch around 11 when we reached Midville, which was about half way between home and Uncle Theo's farm.

We had lunch in the restaurant at the Morrison station.

I was essentially forced to stop.

There was no avoiding this, as there were signs every 5 miles on the average for forty miles alerting travelers of the upcoming Morrison station, so if my kids missed one of them (which they didn't) the odds of them missing all of them were practically nil.

With four dogs in the car, one of them was going to notice.

And all four noticed the first sign (and all subsequent signs along the road to Midville) and alerted me to the fact that we were approaching the Morrison station.

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For those who don't know, Morrison stations are a combination gas, truck stop, restaurant, tavern, motel, convenience store, and gift shop. They are known for their mascot Morris the Elk and his faithful companion Stinky the Skunk.

My dogs like Morris and Stinky. Especially Stinky.

They have all 5 seasons of The Morris and Stinky Show on DVD (director's cut with bonus material), Macky owns all the Morris and Stinky comic books, and Reba has several Morris and Stinky coloring books.

They are particularly fond of Stinky, because being small dogs, Stinky is closer to their size. Elk, majestic though they may be, are somewhat intimidating to Pomeranians.

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We pulled of the highway, and pulled into the parking lot of the Morrison station. We got out, and the dogs all went over to the designated pet potty area and did their business, after which we decided to go inside the station and get some food.

A sign in the window said get your picture taken with Morris and Stinky. This got the dogs excited, but the excitement was short lived when we went inside and found that instead of the real Morris and Stinky there were only two life-like replicas.

Not even two people in Elk and Skunk costumes, but mannequins.

Naturally, they were disappointed, but they posed anyhow and I took pictures of them by the "fake" Stinky.

We ate lunch at the restaurant. Freedom and Macky ate double burgers (with cheese).

Macky wanted to order chili, but I quickly prevented that. There was no way I was riding in the car with Walter the Farting Dog, and informed him that unless he was willing to ride the rest of the way time Pixley in the trunk, he'd select another entrée. 

"Walter" changed his order.

Sarah had a 12 piece chicken nugget, and Reba had a kiddie meal.

The prize was a whistle that was temporarily confiscated while we were on the road.

I had the barbecue chicken sandwich.

We made a brief stop at the gift shop where Macky Rae bought a couple of picture postcards - one of Morris and Stinky (presumably the real ones) and the other was a jackalope.

Macky collects jackalope postcards.

Sarah got a pair of Morris and Stinky salt and pepper shakers (a "thank you" gift for Aunt Helen for inviting us), and I purchased a Morris and Stinky sticker book for Reba. We also purchased numerous bags of chips, beef jerky, and other "road snacks" before finally resuming our drive towards Pixley.

We reach the Pixley County line early in the afternoon. Upon entering the county, Reba commenced her search for real cows, bouncing from window to window, searching the fields on both sides of the road. But for reason unknown to us there were no cows out in the fields at the time we passed.

"Dad!" Reba said. "There are no cows. You said there would be cows."

"We'll see some, don't worry. "

"But the fields are empty."

"Yeah" Macky added, "these fields are swoc."

"Swoc?" I inquired.

"Yeah, swoc" Macky replied.

"Is that even a word?" Sarah asked.

"Yeah" Macky responded.

I had never heard that word before, so like a fool I asked him what it meant

According to Macky, "swoc" means the absence of cows.

You will note "swoc" is "cows" spelled backwards.

He explained that when you come to a pasture, but don't see any cows, you can describe the pasture as swoc, as in "look at that swoc pasture." He says the word isn't limit to pastures, it can be used to describe any place or thing that does not have cows, as in "look at that swoc barn" or "we live in a swoc neighborhood" (which we do), but proper grammer says it should only be used to describes places and things that might normally have cows (like a barn or a pasture).

"Where did you learn that?" Freedom asked.

"Online" Macky answered.

And we can probably assume it wasn't from dictionary.com

We reached the farm about 1:45. Uncle Theo and Aunt Helen came out to greet us. Aunt Helen gave us all hugs, Uncle Theo's just shook my hand and then took our luggage into the house.

Reba began looking around the farm anxiously, and appeared distraught. Aunt Helen noticed this and asked her if something was wrong?

"What happened to all the cows? Dad said Pixley was full of cows, but I didn't see any cows. I looked and looked and I didn't see any cows. Did someone come and steal everybody's cows?"

Aunt Helen looked puzzled, so I explained to her that Reba was anxious to see a real cow.

"Our cows are safe" Aunt Helen assured her. " You'll get to see real cows this afternoon."

Reba was quite pleased to hear that.

"You must be hungry after your drive" she said.

"Not really" I responded politely . "We had lunch at the Morrison station."

"I had a kiddie meal" Reba said. "And I eated it all, by myself."

"Oh dear" Aunt Helen exclaimed. "I figured you and your dogs would be famished after you car ride, so I baked a ham. I had just pulled it out of the oven when you pulled in."

"Smoked ham?" Macky asked.

"Black forest" my aunt replied.

"I'm a little hungry" Freedom said quickly.

"Me too" Sarah added.

"Well come inside then, and I'll go slice up the ham."

And with that, Aunt Helen turned and went back towards the house.

"You ate a huge lunch, plus you ate all the road snacks." I said "How can you guys be hungry?"

"We're dogs" Macky answered.

"And it's ham!" Freedom exclaimed.

Freedom has always loved baked ham with a passion.

"After she went to all that effort just for us, it would be impolite not to eat some" Sarah insisted.

And with that, all four dogs followed Aunt Helen into the house.

To be continued.