It was a House on Wheels Festival!

Monday was our last full day visiting Cousin Carole.

I was starting to get that sad but excited feeling again.  I was sad to have to say good-bye to Cousin Carole, but I was excited to learn what this RV Super Show thingy was all about too.

As usual, me and mommy and daddy went for a nice long walk on Monday morning.  It was a little cool for Florida, but I loved our walk.  We took a route that we had never taken before and it was three miles long.  I love taking long walks and I love taking routes that I’ve never been on because I get to smell so may new things.

On Monday night, we spent a lot of time in Cousin Carole’s house.  I even got a nice visit from Tim that night too.  The whole time that he was there, he was petting me really good!  I love Tim. He’s a really cool guy.  I was sad that we didn’t get to see his dad Ron when we were in Largo, but I told mommy and daddy that we’d just have to go back to visit him and the Pacific Ocean again this year so that we can see him.

After Tim left, it was time for me and Carole to bond again!  I let her pet me and snuggle with me, it was so much fun!  I love Cousin Carole so much!  She is my favorite Cousin Carole in the whole wide world!

Tuesday morning, we got up early and started packing up the house on wheels.  We didn’t have too far to go, we were just heading up the road about 35 miles or so to Lazy Days for one night before heading to that RV Show thingy.  We had to stop at BJ’s Wholesale Club for supplies and then get gas too.  We got to Lazy Days before it was time to check in, but the nice people there let us go to our site early anyway.

I didn’t get too long of a walk on Tuesday, but I did get to walk a little bit.  Mommy wanted to give me a bath in the dog bath at Lazy Days, but I wasn’t having it.  It was too cold and there were other dogs running around in the fenced in area next to the dog wash, so I just wanted to bark at them.  After a short time of me barking and acting like a crazy dog, mommy and daddy gave up on the idea – success!

Wednesday was the big day; I was finally going to get to see what the RV Super Show thingy that mommy and daddy had been talking about for months was all about.  We got up really early and ate breakfast and started getting the house on wheels ready to go.

We only had to drive a few miles to get to the Florida State Fairgrounds where the show was.  When we got there, I couldn’t believe my eyes!  It wasn’t an RV Super Show, it was a House on Wheels Festival!  There were so many Houses on Wheels, it was just absolutely amazing!  I mean I’ve seen a lot of houses on wheels in some of the campgrounds that we’ve stayed in, but this was totally different.  They were everywhere!  Hundreds inside the first fence where we were staying and probably thousands inside the second fence where mommy and daddy went each day.  I think that everyone who reads my blogs now knows that I don’t really like other dogs, so because of that, mommy and daddy wouldn’t take me inside the second fence, but I could see inside of it.  Daddy said that it would be a poop show if I went inside the second fence with them.  I guess that people only want one type of show at the fairgrounds at a time.  So, if there was already an RV Show there, I guess that no one would want a poop show too.  Sometimes I don’t really know what daddy means when he says some things, so I just try to make sense of it on my own.  Anyway, no poop show inside the second fence, it was just nap time for me when mommy and daddy went in there.

We were at the House on Wheels Festival for five days!  Just about every morning, daddy would take me for a nice long walk around the fairgrounds.  It was rainy and ugly on Saturday, so my walk was really short that day, but it was still a walk, so I was happy about that.  Sunday was moving day for us, so we didn’t walk at the fairgrounds, but we did walk somewhere else that was really cool in the afternoon that I’ll tell you about later.

We were able to walk over two miles each time that we walked.  And you know what else?  I had a lot of people pet me!  Parking attendants, people going to the House on Wheels Festival, all kinds of people would pet me.  I also barked at some of the other dogs too.  I just had to let them know that, “Youkilis, the Golden Retriever was here!”  Daddy would tell me to pipe down if I started barking at another dog and we’d walk far away from it, but I still made sure that they knew that I was there.

Every time that mommy and daddy would come back from being inside the second fence, they would smell like some delicious food.  Like funnel cakes, French fries, crepes, pizza, ice cream and all kinds of other stuff.  But they never seemed to bring anything back for me!  What was that all about?  On the rainy day, they did bring some food back to the house on wheels, but they still didn’t share any with me.  They brought back Italian sandwiches with onions and I can’t have onions!  Why would they do such a thing?

Mommy and daddy really enjoyed themselves at the House on Wheels Festival.  Every time that they came back to our house on wheels, they’d talk about how much fun they had and all of the friends that they got to see.  Everyone that they saw at the House on Wheels Festival were people who volunteered with them on one of their A Year to Volunteer projects.

They got to see Phil and Shar every day except for on the rainy day.  I knew when they’d see Phil and Shar because I could smell that Domino character on them when they’d get back.

On Sunday, it was time to move again.  We got up pretty early and went to the Flying J to get propane and empty the poop tank in the house on wheels.  I wonder if that was the show that daddy was talking about?  The guy that filled our propane wasn’t just a good propane filler upper, he was a good petter too!

After the Flying J, we went to what I think is mommy and daddy’s favorite place in Florida.  Parkesdale Farms!  When they came back into the house on wheels, they had all kinds of delicious fruits and one whole flat of strawberries!  I had to smell those strawberries all day long and finally at the end of the night, daddy gave me one.  That’s right, we had like two hundred strawberries in the house on wheels and I got one!  What gives man?

Daddy said that we have to make them last, but he had a lot more than one strawberry, I’ll tell you that!

After Parkesdale, we went to Wal-Mart for supplies and then to Florida Southern College in Lakeland to see the Frank Lloyd Wright buildings.  That was the favorite part of my day because I got to walk around the campus with mommy and daddy!  Not only was I able to walk around the campus, but just about every college kid that we passed wanted to pet me!  Man, that was awesome!

We stopped to do laundry after we left the college and then it was off to Melbourne!

Mommy and daddy had to stop at a Culver’s to eat dinner on our way to Melbourne.  They didn’t bring anything back for me though.

We were staying at the Cracker Barrel in Melbourne because it was going to be too late to go to Aunt Sally and Uncle Randy’s house once we got into town.  Daddy doesn’t like setting up the house on wheels in the dark either.

It was late when we pulled into the Cracker Barrel, after 10 PM.  Mommy washed up the strawberries and got them ready for her Strawberry Shortcake dessert for Aunt Sally’s Monday night dinner.

I can’t wait to see Aunt Sally and Uncle Randy today!

First thing that we were going to do in the morning was surprise Aunt Sally and walk with her at Wickham Park.  I mean, we’ll ate breakfast and drove to Wickham Park before that, but you know what I mean.  But when we got to Wickham Park, Aunt Sally wasn’t there because I guess that it was too cold for her walk.  Daddy said that’s because she was a Floridian and Floridian’s don’t like cold weather.  Apparently, a lot of Floridian’s didn’t walk this morning because Wickham Park was pretty empty, but we still got a three-mile walk in.  One nice man gave me a treat too!

After our walk, we took the house on wheels to the beach in Indialantic.  They have big parking spaces for the house wheels there, that’s why daddy likes it.  I couldn’t go on the beach there anyway, so no big deal for me, not to mention that it’s really too cold for the beach right now anyway.

Mommy and daddy will still have fun though.

They’re going to eat lunch at “The Original Bizzarro Famous New York Pizza” which is right there off of the boardwalk.  All I have to say is that I better get something out of that deal.  Even just some pizza crust would be fine for me.

Tonight, is going to be awesome because I’m going to get see so many people at Aunt Sally’s Monday night dinner.  Pat, and Alice, and John, and Bobby, and Andi will all be there to see me!  I won’t get to see Trish until next week though.

It’s going to be such a great night!  I can’t wait!