Ruark Retreat ~ Mariposa

Dakota wearing my brother's hat

One thing I've learned in my adventures, especially when I was living in Alaska, that you can plan on doing something, and mother nature will have other plans. 

I wanted to go away on a snow trip with my dog. Dakota is a snow dog and he loves the snow. So, I mentioned this to my sister-in-law and the idea took off. We found a place, changed locations, found a new place (on AirBnb), and then kind of forgot about our trip. Since it was a three bedroom house, we invited my baby brother and his girlfriend, making it a sibling trip, with my dog. Since I don't spend a lot of time with my baby brother, I was looking forward to all of us being together. 

About a week before the date of the trip, I had a massive realization, it hasn't been snowing. The East Coast was getting slammed with massive storms, but here in Northern California, it hadn't been raining much, much less snowing in higher elevations. 

So my snow trip was not going to happen.

But we choose to still go. My sister-in-law was going to do all the cooking and we were going to bring board games and just all chill together. My niece, who is one of my favorite people on the planet, was going to be there and they were going to bring their dog since their dog sitter fell through. 

He has no legs!

We all arrived and our weekend began. My brother read aloud "A Die Hard Christmas", we all wrote up our personal lists of our Top Ten Villains of All Time. It was raining and so we stayed in the next day, took naps, then they played an epic game of Monopoly for six hours while I read for a bit, watched "What We Do In The Shadows" and then "Spiderman: Homecoming". 

Sunday morning was a bit stressful, since my brother's dog Rue had to be rushed to the vet because her face started swelling and they weren't sure why. Turns out, she was having an allergic reaction to something up there and ended up being just fine, but they had to leave early and my niece stayed with me and my brother and his girlfriend and I finished cleaning up the house and drove home. 

While it was an amazing bonding experience and getaway for my siblings and myself, I debated even writing about this because it wasn't a huge adventure BUT there was an element that will change my adventures in the future.

And that would be Dakota.

It became painfully obvious to me that Dakota does not like traveling. He was anxious and needy the entire weekend (not eating or sleeping much) and kept going to the door not because he wanted to go outside but because he wanted to go home. 

I knew he did that when I take him over to my mother's house and even sometimes my brother's house but I didn't realize he'll be okay for a couple of hours and then he wants to go back home.  I thought it was funny and cute until I put it together that he's very much a homebody and doesn't like long trips away and certainly not overnight trips. 

So this changes how I travel with him. When I leave for a weekend conference, I normally drop him off somewhere but I think I'm going to just hire someone to check on him and let him out, feed him, etc. I'm no longer going to worry about him for a short trip. 

Dakota all snuggled at home

I'm still going to have him stay with someone for my big trips because that's just too long to be by himself with just a kitty for companionship. 

But for me, I have to ask myself: do I even want to take him with me in the future? 

If I ever take out my teardrop trailer....maybe. 

A road trip, yes, he's coming with me....for safety and it's not the same thing as staying put. I think he does okay if we are moving and changing locations. 

But if we do a weekend like this again, no.....I don't think he'd like it and I think he'd prefer to stay home.

Thoughts? I'd love to hear your insights about this.