Amarillo by Morning

There are so many wonderful amazing awesome things in the world.  Things like taking a nap in a hammock on a spring day, being introduced to a litter of puppies, finding that no one ate the last of the Oreos you hid in the back of the pantry.  But my new favorite wonderful awesome thing is layover days.  Layover days are what make this entire venture worth doing.  Travel days are good in their own way because getting from one point to the next is exciting and progress and of course the whole idea of this.  But layover days mean an extra cup of coffee, laziness, casual walks, snacks, reading, writing blog entries and in general, laying over.

We spent Thursday, March 14 in Abilene State Park as a layover day and I don’t even have anything to report.  It was that peacefully uneventful.  Coffee outside in the sun, walking on Eagle Trail (even through the puddles!), reading books, and enjoying not moving were the highlights of the day.

I had a blanket over my legs and Brodie settled in for a nap.

Maiya got on her bed on the RV floor and took a snooze with her stuffed animal.

It was so pretty outside, we decided to have a picnic and serve small dog on the menu.

Just kidding!  I thought it really looked like a picnic spread, and Brodie and Belle were drunk with sunshine and didn’t mind me taking their picture at all.

That evening we were well rested and happy and glad there were no more high winds.  We made fish tacos with fresh avocado salsa (hey! I used those tomatoes I was worried about!) and snapped a photo of us looking relaxed.  That’s what layover days will do for you.

Dave felt so bad that I had insomnia the night before that he told me to take the night off.  Instead of being a team and worrying about dogs having to go out in the night or other issues together, he let me forget about anything dog related.  I was off duty.  He, in turn, made sure everyone was settled down and made himself available in case things didn’t go smoothly.  And as it turns out, everything went smoothly.  Brodie was calm and quiet all night, no one had to go potty till around 6am and then afterwards, they all went back to sleep.  Thus began our new policy that is working beautifully. 

Each of us gets to be off duty every other night.  When you’re on duty, you get up in the night if anyone has to potty (which no one has of late- thank god), you let them out in the morning and you feed them.  Oh, and you put the coffee on.  The other person is absolved of any real responsibility until after coffee and this has been a genius plan that keeps us all sane.  Teamwork is great, but having a night off is even better.

Off we went to the KOA in Amarillo, Texas for a two night stay.  Again, layover days are the bomb.  We’ve been going to state parks so I’m used to rather rustic conditions but KOA is like the Four Seasons of the camping set.  They have cable tv!  And Wifi! (Well, that’s debatable after I tried to publish a blog entry…) And a store!  With beer!  How can you go wrong with beer?

State parks have showers (most of the time) but KOA campgrounds have SHOWERS.  Super hot water, high water pressure, private room luxurious SHOWERS.  I could get used to this.

There’s state park clean, and then there’s KOA clean.  Enough said.

I'd made meatballs at home before we left (setting ourselves up for success!) and cooked spaghetti in Abilene the night before so our first night in Amarillo was spaghetti and meatballs and actual cable tv.  Cooking on travel days = no bueno.  Because of our new on duty/off duty dog plan we both got lots of rest that night and were excited to try something new on Saturday – taking the RV away from the park on a day excursion to Palo Duro Canyon State Park.

We’re never going to learn how to use the RV as a house AND our transportation on layover days unless we do it, so let’s do it!