Hounds
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Detroit, Michigan
July 22 -- July 24
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Our nephew Jedediah playing with his plastic shovel.
Our last destination on our trip was Detroit, where members of my extended family get together every year (most of them live in the area). We left Indiana Dunes State Park around 7am and drove east, arriving at the Marywood Center where my grandmother lives. We ate lunch with my relatives then hung out in the enclosed courtyard area. We had brought our hounds up for the weekend reunion last year, and a number of the other residents had petted them and asked questions about them, so we weren`t surprised to see other folks out in the courtyard watching the hounds. The hounds spent most of the afternoon lying on two blankets spread out under the shade of a tree, secured to the tree with their leashes as we sat and talked a few feet away.
My two nieces, Katherine and Samantha, love the hounds, and accompanied us when we walked the hounds on the grounds outside of the center. Their little brother Jedediah is still too young to verbalize his fondness for all dogs (they have two dogs back home in Arizona) but he would smile at the hounds and pet them.
The nursing home is also home to a declawed black cat named Midnight who hangs out on the chairs in the front lobby. After the last walk outside, Wren saw Midnight as she came in the front door and, never really having met a cat up close, went right up to the feline. Midnight batted Wren on the nose. Wren thought it was an invitation to play, so she crouched and barked once at Midnight, startling everyone in the room: none of them had ever heard our hounds bark before. Deanna managed to rein in Wren and get her out of the room before she got herself in any real trouble with the cat.
We all left the nursing home around 5pm and went to the hotel. We checked in and got everything we would need for our stay out of the camper and into our room. We brought the blankets from the van into the room for the hounds to lie on: we put one over the couch because we knew that Tyler would get up there no matter what we might try to do to stop him. Once we were settled, we joined the rest of our family staying at the hotel for dinner then called it a day.
Trampolines are fun.
The next morning we drove north of the city to the home of my cousin Lisa, her husband Tim, and their children. They typically host the gathering of my father`s side of the family because they have an extensive yard with lots of playground equipment and a trampoline to keep the kids and teenagers busy. Last year we kept the hounds in one of the rooms inside the house. Since the weather was so nice, we simply popped up the camper and let the hounds hang out in there. We made sure one of us was outside and visible to the hounds most of the day: Carrie tends to whine if she can`t see us but knows we`re nearby. So we snacked, ate pizza, and hung out until the evening, then returned to the hotel. During the night, Frazzle figured out a way to squeeze himself onto the plush highback chair in the room: he rested his head on one of the armrests and had all of his legs sticking out in front of him.
The big family photo.
We spent our final day in Detroit back at the nursing home with my grandmother, my parents, and my sister`s family. Deanna noticed an abrasion on one of Frazzle`s toes, so she wrapped it in a bandage to keep it clean. It didn`t seem to impede his mobility, not that he or the other hounds moved around too much: they were content to relax in the shade.
After dinner back at the hotel, we said our goodbyes to everyone because we would be up and away before anyone else. So the next morning we got up, got everything back in the camper and the van, and started the long drive back to Maryland.