Tag: House on Wheels

Different

Today marks three months since Youk crossed the Rainbow Bridge.

We still absolutely love our full-time RV lifestyle, but things are different now.

We’re slowly adjusting, but we do have our moments when a small reminder can overtake us with emotion.  That’s the way that grief works, though.  You never get over it.  You never outgrow it.  You never heal from it.  You simply evolve through it.  Grief is like the ocean waves.  One day they’re calm, the next day they can be rough, no matter what, they’re ever constant.  Whether a pet, a family member, or a friend.  They take a piece of us with them when they leave, but they also leave a piece of themselves with us in the form of memories. 

So much of our lives over the past fifteen years revolved around Youk.  Before we traveled full-time, and even more so once we started traveling.  Anytime that we went anywhere, we first had to make sure that Youk would be safe while we were gone.  Running the generator so that we could turn the air conditioner on for him if we were doing something that he couldn’t do with us.  Always checking to see what places were pet friendly so that he could experience it with us.  It’s just what we did.  Anyone with a pet, certainly understands what I’m talking about.

Our life is still great, but now it’s different.

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Dan and Sandy – Three Becomes Two

This was probably the most difficult podcast that I ever had to record.

In this episode of “The Journey of My Mother’s Son” podcast, Sandy and I talk about our travels through California and the loss of our best travel companion, Youk.

The end of April was very difficult for us and we’re still working through the grief process.  Youk crossed the Rainbow Bridge on April 24, 2024.  It was certainly the most difficult thing that we’ve had to deal with since we’ve been traveling.  Youk brought joy to such a large part of lives.  We literally planned our life around his schedule and well-being.  In return, he gave us unconditional love and countless memories that will last the rest of lives.

He was a larger-than-life personality who impacted the world in ways we never could have imagined.  Countless people from all over the world have reached out to us since his passing to let us know how much they loved our best-selling author pup.

In addition to Youk, we talk about our travels through several national parks in California (Joshua Tree, Sequoia, Kings Canyon, Yosemite, and The Redwoods), our project at the Southern California Railway Museum, our night under the Golden Gate Bridge, our Pacific Coast Highway Adventure, and of course, reconnecting with friends.

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Youk’s Last Ride

It was a hot day, but we were very excited to be on a volunteer project again with many of our fellow RV friends.  Mainly because of my book signing schedule, we hadn’t worked a volunteer project since September of 2022, so this had been a long-time coming.

As Youkilis has aged, he really minded hot weather.  He would lay around on hot days and not move much at all.  This is the way that he was when we arrived at the project.  It was the third day in a row of pretty hot weather, so Sandy and I really didn’t think much of it.  We just told him that tomorrow would be cooler.

After we had our volunteer meeting and tour of the project facility, Sandy, Youk, and I went over to sit and talk with our friends, Jennie and Eric, who we’ll be traveling through Canada and Alaska with this summer.  Youk got his customary pets and love when we first got over to their rig, but it didn’t take him long to just settle and lay down while we chatted.  It was starting to cool down, so I thought that we were on the home stretch and he’d be back to his old self soon.

When we started to pack our chairs up and head back to our rig for the night, Youk couldn’t get up on his own.  I helped him up, but again, didn’t think too much about it and just figured that he was still just beat from the heat that we had experienced over the past three days in the desert on our way to the project.

Monday morning when we woke up, he was laying in the exact same spot where he was when we went to bed.  Normally, he would change locations during the night.  If he went to bed near the hallway, many times he would be sleeping by the couch in the living room or in front of our bathroom door in the hallway when we got up.  That was just his routine.  When I told him to get up so that we go potty and eat breakfast, he tried, but could not get up on his own, just like the night before at Eric and Jennie’s rig.  Now we were starting to get concerned. 

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Dan and Sandy – Louisiana, Texas Beaches, and Mardi Gras

We’ll be in Galveston for just over a month, staying at the Galveston Island KOA as well as Galveston Island State Park.  During the month, I have a total of nine book signing and speaking events between Kroger and the KOA.

Between the activities at the campground and Mardi Gars, Sandy and I have been really active since we have arrived at the KOA.  It’s a great campground with an amazing staff, and tons of activities for all ages.

We love coming to Galveston.  It’s is such a cool little city.  It’s an island town with a charming little downtown area.  Sandy has even mentioned that this may be the spot that we settle down at after if we decide to trade in the nomad lifestyle for something less mobile.

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It was a House on Wheels Festival!

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.

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Louisiana to Largo, White Sand, Friends, and Family

Mommy and daddy were sad to leave their friends, but they were all also excited to be headed to Cousin Carole’s house in Largo.  I was really excited to get to Cousin Carole’s house too.  I get to go into her house and she has a fenced in backyard, so I can roam around her backyard and pee and poop wherever I want to when we visit her.

We stopped at a roadside produce stand on the way to Cousin Carole’s house and mommy bought all kinds of tasty fresh fruit.  I can’t wait to help mommy and daddy eat it!  I love fruit and mommy and daddy always share their fruit with me.  The nice lady at the produce stand gave us all samples of a yummy clementine.  It was delicious!

We also stopped at Aldi and Publix so that mommy could get food so that her and daddy wouldn’t starve while we were at Cousin Carole’s house.

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Well, Hello There, Pacific Ocean!

We had finally made it!  Me and mommy and daddy made our zig-zag trek across the country and we’re standing at the top of the hill at the end of Ron’s trail glaring at the Pacific Ocean.  This pup was completely in awe!  It was even bigger than what I had imagined and the waves were just crashing down one after another making a thunderous sound as they cascaded into the sandy beach.

All that I could think of is that I was one lucky puppy.

There were times on this journey out west that I was beginning to wonder if we’d ever get to see the Pacific Ocean.  Daddy just seemed to keep making more and more stops along the way.  Although, I must admit, every one of those stops was pretty amazing in their own right.

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This Pup is finally Westward Bound! (Part 2)

We drove for about 2-1/2 hours and then we stopped at the Flight 93 Memorial in Shanksville, PA.

It was a really pretty place, but something terrible happened there back in 2001 before I was even born.  Some really bad people hijacked a plane and were going to fly it into the capital in Washington, DC.  Some of those bad people’s other friends had already crashed planes into the twin towers in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, DC that same day.  There were some brave people on that plane, and they forced it down and made it crash into this field that we were at instead of the capital.  Those brave people would never get to see their families or puppies ever again.  I couldn’t understand why people would want to hurt people that they don’t even know.

Mommy and daddy seemed sad at times when we walked around.  I wasn’t able to go inside the buildings, but I was able to walk around the outside trails with mommy and daddy.  I helped to keep them happy if they started to get too sad.  A lot of people would come up to pet me and I helped them from getting too sad as well.

My daddy’s mommy helped in the recovery of the place in New York where the planes crashed, it was called Ground Zero.  My daddy thinks about his mommy a lot when he goes to places that refer to 9/11.  Daddy says that she was a great human.  Daddy doesn’t know this, but I have met his mommy.  You see us dogs have a sixth sense that humans don’t have, so I actually talk to my daddy’s mommy quite a bit.  She’s a cool spirit now.

I heard that there were some golden retriever’s that helped at Ground Zero too, I could have been one of those dogs for sure.  I would have been really good at that.

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