Jim and I are fortunate enough to not only be able to work from home (and on the road), but also to stay in great hotels and resorts if we so choose. Well, we found a great four star resort, with a pet friendly area (so long as you’re prepared to clean up after them) which is safely fenced in, meaning the dogs can run freely while Jim and I sit back and sip our Margaritas!

Another fantastic thing was that they allowed us to leave Princess in the room (so long as she had her litter tray, food on demand and her catnip toys, we knew she’d be fine). So, for the first time in several days we were able to relax! However, there were still things to plan! We didn’t have our return journey mapped out yet, as we were planning on using a different route. And even though we’d noted some good sounding pet friendly hotels, we were starting to think we’d like to try something a little different. Maybe a night at a B&B or a night camping under the stars! While I was checking out our options in this regard, Jim was reconsidering our decision not to fly with the pets.

I was still very uncertain about flying, especially after all the horror stories I’d read, but he’d done a bit of further investigation, and found information about Pet Air, a pet travel agent. I decided to let Jim to his research, while I worked at mine. After all, I’d have another couple of months before we’d even consider another long trip like this one…

I started off by looking into camping, or at least trying something a little more “outdoorsy” than the comfort of a hotel room. Jim was a Boy Scout as a kid and he still lived by the motto: Be Prepared, so we always brought a tent with us, in case (for whatever reason) we found ourselves stranded. We’ve got a great big family sized tent (which you need when you’ve got pets!), as well as sleeping bags, self-inflatable air mattresses, and of course, our pets’ own bedding. I looked into pet friendly camping sites, and discovered one which looked just the thing. Of course, Princess could pose some problems, as I’m loath to let her free in a strange area, in case she runs off and gets lost. The dogs, meanwhile, don’t seem to wander as far away, or get as distracted by interesting objects of prey. I reasoned that we could leave her in the tent (I did say it was big, didn’t I?) while we let the dogs out. And she could always go on her leash for exercise. So that was settled.

Now for my next idea, a friendly B&B. While doing my pet hotel research, I’d seen listings for B&Bs but hadn’t paid much attention. However, I jumped back onto www.petswelcome.com and searched for B&B listings. Fortunately, there were quite a few, and a couple of phone calls later I’d booked one for two nights. After Samson’s issues with four days of straight driving, I was prepared to take a little longer getting home. Besides, our return date wasn’t set in stone, so a couple of extra days wouldn’t matter.

I spoke to a lovely lady named Jean who adored animals, and had a couple of cats and dogs of her own. She wasn’t the slightest bit fussed about animals roaming free around her house, which surprised me, and I asked her what she’d do if the cats or dogs got into a fight. She just laughed, told me that if she ever saw one of her pets fight she’d faint clean away. I assured her that Fifi, Samson and Princess were equally well behaved, all the time fingers crossed!

I announced the plans I’d made to Jim and he announced that next vacation we were flying to Hawaii!