29 November 2013

Pet Friendly!

When you think/thought of retiring, is/was TRAVEL big on your "Bucket List"?
It was on ours. We had visions of taking off at a moment's notice to attend some festival, celebrating the return of Starlings to Ft. Campbell, KY, for instance. (That's an inside joke right there, doncha know!)


So here we are-
Healthy enough.
Prosperous enough.
And we have more than enough machines... both two wheeled, and four.

But there's a small "fly in the ointment"...
We have this furry, black, 12-pound daughter. Part of the reason we drove straight-thru from Destin to Phoenix early this month was because we didn't want to deal with the worry of leaving Lucy in her bed in the truck while we slept in a warm, comfortable motel bed.
(Get caught sneaking her into many motels and it can get VERY expen$ive in a hurry.)
So we drove 1700+ miles, 25 hours, stopping only to eat, "rest", and refuel, so that Lucy wouldn't be forced to sleep in the cold truck.


While in Arizona, friend Max opened my eyes...
All ya gotta do is type "Pet friendly motels" into a search engine and worries about animal abuse disappear!
Most "Drury" and "La Quinta" Inns are pet friendly... at NO extra cost.
We stayed at a Ramada Inn in El Paso with Lucy sharing the Queen-size bed with us for just an additional ten dollar charge, thanks to a simple internet search.

We still have to make arrangements for her if we, as we dreamed, want to take advantage of cheap deals on "last minute" cruises, or if we want to go on a long flight.
But we now have a weight lifted off our shoulders when we're "trucking" across the U.S. with a bike in the bed of the Cummins-powered Ram.

And that's worth more than you might think to us.
Thanks Max.



7 comments:

Bloviating Zeppelin said...

Actually that's quite true. You can readily find those types of motels on your travels.

I was surprised as to the NUMBER of motels and hotels that ARE pet friendly. And the ones I've found are not that much more expensive. Some haven't charged at all. Our last trip to the coast had us staying in a dog-friendly cottage.

My wife in particular enjoys the option of bringing a dog or two. Besides myself, of course.

BZ

Old NFO said...

Sorry, I though you were aware they DO have pet friendly places... Glad you are now aware, and the trip went well!

Scotty said...

We learned those ropes with our doxies. Even when we've had no options the most we've been charged to date has been 10 bux. We had two for the longest time and one, her old age caught up with her a few years ago.

Down to one and she's 14 years old. At this point in our lives I can't see us getting another dog but, if I had a dollar for every time we've said "no more dogs"......

Ed Bonderenka said...

Have you seen these?
http://motusmotorcycles.com/

Rain Trueax said...

Another pet friendly hotel chain is Motel 6. I hadn't stayed in one for years but when traveling with our cats, they became the motel of choice as many allow dogs, not many allow cats. They allow pets period :). I would never sneak a cat in anywhere as some people are deathly allergic to them. It complicates traveling but this time when we head for Arizona, we are taking the trailer and it's very pet friendly since it's ours :)

Greybeard said...

Hi Rain!
We're considering buying a "truck camper" with slide-outs, mostly because we don't want to have to worry about Lucy being excluded from some Motel in Central Nowhere. (We'd sleep in the truck with her rather than leave her out.)
We're leaving for Gilbert, AZ today to spend the holidays with our son. If you are on the go this weekend, have safe travels; traffic is supposed to be wild.

Timothy Frazier said...

Robin and I solved that problem by buying a used low mileage 2007 Fleetwood Terra Motorhome. We stay nights at KOA campgrounds or WalMart parking lots (Sam was a big RV community fan, and established a RV overnight parking freindly policy that most WalMarts honor still).

Moses and Noah are the Motorhome burglar detection, prevention, and apprehension system.

Between the dogs and both our Kimber .45s, we sleep feeling very secure no matter where we are.

Yes, I'm back. It's been a really rough year. But I came out of the barrel of turds smoking a cigar once again :)