Weekend Wagoneer

I'm sorry I didn't post any this weekend, but it went by really quickly. Saturday was taken up by an 11 hour road trip that started at 2 pm. What kind of road trip takes 11 hours? The kind where you drive to the Outer Banks to look at a 1983 Jeep Wagoneer Limited. It was quite the adventure.

The drive to Avon, NC was only supposed to take us 4 hours each way.


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We decided to take the dogs with us, and this caused a few problems and delays that turned a 4 hour drive into a 5 1/2 hour trip down. So what could add an hour and a half onto our drive down?

Well, first off, Owen decided to poop in the back of the 4Runner. Not a pleasant thing when it's raining, the heat is on, and the windows can't be lowered. The other bad thing about this is that I couldn't keep Owen from running away from me. When I tried to secure him, he did just what I was trying to secure him to prevent - he walked through his own poop and walked it around the rest of the back of the 4Runner. Disgusting.

Now we know that Owen still has potty training issues. We've been working with him and he's been doing really well, but we've only had him for almost four weeks now. His last accident was over a week ago, so we thought we were almost safe. We never thought that he would poop in the truck. We stopped the truck and tried to get it up as best we could on the side of the road with loose pups in the back.

This accident required that we stop at the next exit and look for a place that might have some paper towels and a cleaner to get things cleaned up. Thank goodness for Super Wal-mart! I was able to get the paper towels, a carpet cleaner, two $4 rugs to have for the crate (which we finally opened up and put the pups in - Owen had pooped on their blanket), and two sodas for us to drink. I got the back of the truck cleaned while the pups went for potty walks, and we were back on the road in 30 minutes. Not too shabby for having to brave the lines in Wal-mart.

So, we finally made it to the couple's house that had the Jeep for sale. They were such nice people, and had an adorable puppy of their own! We looked the Wagoneer over as best we could in the dark with a flashlight, and then Zach took it out for a spin. We ended up buying it for $600 and then driving it back home. We were so glad when we made it home at 3 am and climbed into bed. Zach apologized for the trip. He thought that it would be a good time and a nice opportunity for us to have several hours of bonding time away from the house. He thought it was a failure, but while it was difficult, it really wasn't that bad.

Now we have a great 1983 Jeep Wagoneer. This will be something for Zach to work on, a good project that he can enjoy, a second "truck" in case he needs one, and it's also our new dog car. Maybe now we can take the pups on more road trips. Hopefully the next one will be more successful.

Sunday was a day to sleep late after getting back so early in the morning. We had our pancakes for breakfast like normal, it was just later than usual. It was a good relaxing day.