Utah Sure was Salty and Red

As we left Idaho, we headed down into Utah.

I was never in Utah before, well, I haven’t been in any of the places that we’ve been to since we moved into the house on wheels.  I’m such a lucky dog to be able to travel to all of these really cool places with my mommy and daddy.  I really do love my life!

We drove into Ogden, Utah and stayed at another Cracker Barrel.  I heard mommy talking to Aunt Cheryl on the phone the other day, and Aunt Cheryl told mommy that she should order a side order of bacon to go and bring it to me in the house on wheels the next time that we go to a Cracker Barrel.  So, I was really excited that we were at another Cracker Barrel!  That’s why I love Aunt Cheryl so much, she has great ideas!  Did you know that when we go to stay at Aunt Cheryl’s house that she always has a bag of bacon already cooked up just for me?  She keeps it in the refrigerator, so we just need to heat it up (or just eat it cold).  I don’t care either way.   It’s pretty awesome.  I mean she says that it’s for her and mommy and daddy too, but I know that she really does it just for me!  I’ll let mommy and daddy think that it’s for them too, but it will be me and Aunt Cheryl’s little secret that it’s really just for me.

When we woke up in the morning, I was so excited!  I was like, “Come on mommy and daddy, get it there, eat breakfast, and bring me my bacon!”

Can you believe that when mommy and daddy came out of the Cracker Barrel, they both smelled like bacon, but somehow…somehow forgot to order my bacon!  I was stunned!  Did they forget Aunt Cheryl’s idea?!  How could that happen?  Now I had to sit there and smell the bacon on them but had no bacon for myself.  What a bummer!

Mommy and daddy said that they were sorry for forgetting my bacon, but my belly was still craving it.

From the Cracker Barrel, we were heading to the Great Salt Lake.  I didn’t know what that was, but it was water, so that was cool.

When we got there, it smelled kind of yucky, but I didn’t care.  Me and mommy and daddy walked all around and down on the beach and then we all dipped our toes into the Great Salt Lake!  It was really neat, but really salty too.  It was a lot saltier than both the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean as well as the Gulf of Mexico too.  It was really calm though.

We spent a couple of hours there and started driving again.

Mommy and daddy stopped in Provo to eat dinner at a Carrabba’s Italian Grill and again didn’t bring anything out for me.

After dinner, we went to a Dollar Tree and then Sam’s Club and Home Depot before starting down the road again.  We drove pretty late that night and finally stopped at a Pilot to sleep.

After we woke up, we started to drive down to St. George.  Daddy has a good friend in St. George.  Her name is Michelle Delloso.  She is from Pennsylvania too, Quakertown to be exact.  She played professional baseball for the Colorado Silver Bullets.  Daddy coached against her team all the way back in 1994.  I wasn’t even born yet when that happened.

Daddy did a podcast with her last year and now they call each other their soul brother and sister.  I’ve noticed that daddy has a couple of these soul sisters.

Once we got into St. George, we went to the campground at Snow Canyon State Park.  Michelle got there right after us and she brought us pizza!  And when I say “we,” I mean me too!  Her and mommy and daddy and me all ate pizza and it was so good.  I immediately fell in love with Michelle because she brought me some pizza.

After we ate the pizza, we went for a nice little hike.  It was so beautiful!  The big rocks all around the park are called petrified dunes and they looked so cool.  They were all bright red and looked so neat.  I thought that we were on Mars!  I really liked our hike with Michelle.

We watched the sunset and then hung out for awhile with Michelle.  Michelle brought all kinds of stuff over for mommy and daddy.

The next day, daddy got up before the sun came up to hike out on the trail.  I was sad at first because I always want to go on hikes with my daddy.  But daddy needed to walk with God that morning to see the sunrise, so I was ok with daddy not taking me with him.  Mommy got up and fed me breakfast, which made me happy.

When daddy came back, we started to get everything packed up and then Michelle came over again.  She was taking mommy and daddy to lunch and then we were all going to go on a walk.  When we started walking, so many people wanted to pet me and of course, after they did, they all had really big smiles on their faces.  I really enjoyed our walk.  It was a beautiful day.

After our walk, we headed to the Cracker Barrel and Michelle went home.  There were so many other houses on wheels at the Cracker Barrel, I couldn’t believe it.

The next day, which was a Friday, Michelle met us at the Cracker Barrel and went inside to have breakfast with mommy and daddy.  I was excited because I knew that there was no way that mommy and daddy would forget to bring me my bacon this time!

Can you believe that they forgot again!  I was devastated!

They all came out talking about how full their bellies were and they all smelled so good and there I was with nothing again!  I couldn’t believe it.  I was going to write a note for mommy and daddy and stick it on their shirt so that they wouldn’t forget the next time that they went to a Cracker Barrel.

Michelle came into the house on wheels and hung out with us for a little before we left.  It was raining, which it hardly ever does in St. George, Utah.  That made Michelle happy because she said that they really needed the rain.

Michelle prayed with us before we left.  We asked for God to continue to guide us and bless us with safety on our travels.  It really meant a lot to mommy and daddy to have Michelle pray with us.  Me and mommy and daddy all really enjoyed our visit with Michelle.  I now know why daddy and Michelle call each other brother and sister.

When we left St. George, it was daddy’s goal to drive into Flagstaff, Arizona.  We were going to Picacho Peak State Park where mommy and daddy were going to be volunteering with A Year to Volunteer again and we had to be there by Sunday.  We weren’t sure if we would make it into Flagstaff because of how the weather was, but daddy is really a good driver and he always makes sure that me and mommy are safe when he’s driving.

Mommy and daddy were excited to volunteer again.  They both really enjoy giving back.  If they didn’t like volunteering so much, they may not have been my mommy and daddy because that’s how they first fell in love with me because I was born at the Delaware Valley Golden Retriever Rescue, and mommy volunteered there at that time.  I was so lucky to be born there and have mommy and daddy fall in love with me right away!  They had three other dogs when I was born and they loved me so much that they wanted me too!

They really like this A Year to Volunteer organization because they really love the founders, Phil and Shar.  They’re really good people even though they have one of those little tiny dogs.

Our goal was to get to another Cracker Barrel in Flagstaff, I didn’t care if we stayed there or not, because mommy and daddy kept forgetting to get my bacon anyway.

We did make it to the Cracker Barrel in Flagstaff, but can you believe that when we got there, there were no more spaces for any house on wheels!  That’s never happened to us before.

We ended up driving another hour and got to a Pilot where daddy got gas and then we found a spot in the parking lot and slept.

That put us only about 2-1/2 hours from Picacho, so we would have plenty of time the next day for mommy to get us all of the supplies that we’d need for the next two weeks.  It also gave daddy plenty of time to drive us to the KOA that we’d be staying at before going into the state park for two weeks.

I loved our time in Utah, but was really looking forward to Arizona too!