Pat Bean's blog

            “The great pleasure of a dog is that you may make a fool of yourself with him and not only will he not scold you, but he will make a fool of himself too.” — Samuel Butler, Notebooks, 1912

Pepper investigating that purple cow back in Waynesboro, Virginia. — Photo by Pat Bean

Adventures with Pepper: Days 38-45

As my regular readers know, I lost Maggie, the dog who was my traveling companion during my first eight years of living on the road.

Pepper and me taken at the SPCA shelter in Plano, Texas, on the day she hopped into my lab, looked up at me and with her eyes clearly said: I’m going home with you. I hadn’t been looking for either a puppy or a terrier. — Photo by Pat Bean

After a horrendous period of grieving, I acquired Pepper, who has been my travel companion since April 20^th.  She was a four-month-old rag mop of a  Scotty-mix, the Plano, Texas, SPCA Shelter staff said, when I rescued her.

Since then, she’s doubled in size to about 20 or so pounds, and has become a piece of my heart.   Where Maggie was the Grand Diva of dogs, Pepper is a rowdy tomboy whose greatest joy in life is giving me chin kisses and rough-housing with bigger dogs.

At Yogi’s in the Smokies campground, where I spent a week, the dog she played with was a young black lab that belonged to a large family group that were my neighbors. One afternoon, after we had laughingly watched the two of them play, I got a knock on my RV door.

Pepper keeping an eye on me from her high perch on our over-the-cab bed. — Photo by Pat Bean

“Would Pepper’s mom like to come have steak around the campfire with us,” two young girls asked.

Pepper’s mom said, “Yes.”

Book Report: Travels with Maggie is now up to 61,868 words.

The Wondering Wanderer’s blog pick of the day.

Bean’s Pat: Hunting Trolls in Norway http://tinyurl.com/b9bovh6 Travel is all about learning something new, and not getting eaten by trolls.