I'd Like to be Frank

No, I don't mean I want to be blunt.

I want to be Frank...

Everyone always talks about a dogs life, well, that's Frank's life.  I want to wander around, visiting people, mooching food, taking long naps, have everyone love me, and never worry about anything.

Frank technically belongs to my nephew Jason and his wife Allison.  But, a subdivision house and three kids do not a good place for a hound dog make, so Frank lives with his "grandparents". Now, I use the term lives with pretty loosely here, because Frank doesn't really know where he lives.  I am pretty sure Frank lives at my house, my mother swears he's always at hers, and Nancy claims he's always at hers. 

Everybody loves Frank, I could have given him a way a couple dozen times over the years.  And even though my family says his name with derision, I think we would all miss him if he wasn't around.

Sometimes Frank is a challenge, for instance when he wants my dogs to come out and play in the middle of the night he comes under my bedroom window and barks until I let Tina out to play.  The other night I had been out checking the animals, then went to bed.  Around 11:30 I woke up to Scott opening the bedroom window and yelling at Frank to shut up.  Around 3:30 Frank woke me up again, not with his send out my friends bark or even his "I think this tree in the backyard might be getting ready to attack you" bark.  No, he just was barking, so I sent Tina out, she stood on the back steps growled then ignored him.  Deciding that he wasn't going to shut up and that we have had a few bears in the area, I grabbed a mag lite and headed out (yes, in my undies, because at 3:30 in the morning if someone is looking for a show I'm going to give it to them) I had just started out in the back yard and put the light out to the goat pen, there was Frank.  He apparently had nosed his way into the pen while I was checking on everybody (something he does regularly) and got caught.

One thing is for sure, Frank gets around.  I don't think anyone ever gets out of their car without Frank there to greet them.  He wanders around all day, greeting everyone, checking out all the dog dishes, playing, and seeing what is going on.  In fact I think the only one Frank truly annoys is my dog Dudley, who is not amused with Franks hippie dippie attitude.  Although when my husband took on the bear at our garage, it was Frank who stood by his side.

So I want Frank's life, maybe for just a few days, but the biggest thought in his mind is where to ...SQUIRREL.  Oh, did I mention he gets a little distracted?  Sometimes when I get home with my groceries I have to hurry because Frank can somehow get those little knock kneed legs to get that incredibly long body clear up into the van or truck for his favorite groceries.  I have seen him reach hamburger buns in the middle of the ...SQUIRREL.  See what I mean, so for a dog's life, I'd like to be Frank.

Vacation

As noted in a lot of previous entries...Scott and I work alot. Especially this summer, since my work has had some major issues. So we knew that since we had both put in for vacation time for this week (using the end of month beginning of next month week to avoid deadlines) we kn had to get a serious vacation in. We hadn't really been on a vacation in a couple of years, if you don't count family reunions and long weekends in Salt Lake. So we loaded up El Presidente and headed out. If you really want to spend some quality time together, travel 2600 miles in 10 days with your family.

Heading out I was pretty excited. You see growing up my parents always went on long car vacations. I think I was about 3 or 4 at the earliest that I remember. My parents loaded about 10 of us into our family transport (at the time it was a 1ton dually GMC crew cab, and while they are all the rage now, they were pretty rare then especially east of the Mississippi). Anyway, I think the truck got about 5 gallons to the mile back then. I spent the whole trip as my Dad's right hand girl...or as my sisters remember, leaning heavily on him, standing up next to him on the seat of the pickup. Because back then we didn't even know where the seat belts were, let alone that we were supposed to wear them.

But, I digress... So the Dederick Family headed out, we went west to Salt Lake to drop in at the base and then across northern Nevada, spending the first night in Winnamucca. Unbeknownst to me that the annual Winnamucca livestock auction was going to take all the hotel rooms in that town. After finding a nasty room for the night we left early the next day and drove on in to San Francisco.

We checked out the Golden Gate bridge and went down to Fisherman's Wharf for a rocket boat ride in the bay. The kids loved it (btw, taking El Presidente downtown San Fran was a little difficult, but as chief driver I did it beautifully).

That night we went to our hotel room near Oakland and decided it wasn't going to work...knowing that we wanted to be in San Jose the next morning we decided to strike out heading down I5 and find a room on the way...big mistake. There were no rooms! We tried 8-10 story Hyatt's, Hilton's, and Marriott's, only to be told they were completely booked. By 11:00 that night, the poor Marriott clerk took pity on us and found us a couple of rooms down the street at a Hampton. The next morning we discovered that we were in Silicone Valley, and the reason for the hotel room shortage was the San Francisco Marathon that was going on Sunday morning.

We headed out the next morning and right after pulling onto the interstate I saw this!!!

My children did not appreciate nor understand why I had to pull over and take pics

 We went down to the Winchester house then over to Monterrey. The Gilroy Garlic festival was just winding down when we went through there, but I couldn't get anyone to agree to stop. When we got to Monterrey we took a glass bottom boat out in the bay to see a lot of jellyfish which I think are creepy looking.

 The next morning we went to the Monterrey aquarium which was awesome and then headed to Fresno to visit the big trees.  

Do we look like beach people??  I think everyone could tell we were out of towners! 

While I would like to say we spent an awesome day in the Sequoias, that would be a lie. The only thing cool was the few sequoias we got to see, because of my poor navigational skills. Scott's GPS system hates me, and she totally set me up trying to get off the mountain. We ended up on a dirt road with no place to turn around for 6 miles...the end of which was blocked by a green livestock gate and the stupid GPS in my hand then said, "Make a U turn if possible".

The next morning with Scott navigating we headed south to Anaheim for 3 days of Disneyland and California Adventure. I have to admit it is pretty fun to have kids the age that you don't have to worry about them being tall enough for the rides or having to wander around, hunting down Princesses for pictures.

We had a great time, mastered the art of the Fast Pass, and loved Cars Land. Did I mention that we loved Cars Land??? Not realizing that Cars Land had only been open for 6 weeks did make it a bit crowded, but the family loved it anyway.

We got home late each night not feeling our feet, but back up the next morning ready to do it all over again.

Saturday we headed over to Las Vegas, where we stayed at Circus Circus, I know what you are thinking, but they have redone the rooms and we stayed in a very nice room. We took the kids down the strip and over to Fremont Street, and while they thought it was an experience, it isn't something they are real anxious to go back to. 

 Sunday we headed home, our goats, dogs, pigs, family and even the chickens had really missed us. We spent Monday recovering and then it was back at work Tuesday morning.

I did realize a few things on this trip:

I have no idea how my parents managed that with a ton of kids across the states for 2+ weeks at a time.

 My family is definitely more Monterrey than San Francisco

Hotel waffle machines are treated timidly as a nuclear reactors

While my family likes being to together, there is such a thing as "to much"

Perry the Platypus shirts are the second most popular in Disneyland

 I never want to live in California

Finally: I can't wait to do it all again!!!