Happy belated 4th of July!  We are currently up in Minnesota enjoying the nice weather, having a wonderful visit with family and friends.  We’ll be here for another 3 weeks, then we are heading out to San Diego for another 3 weeks, then back here for a while before we travel back down to the boat.  After this post, there probably won’t be many more posts till we get back to Chattanooga.  Although if we do anything fun and exciting, you’ll be the first to know.

One thing that was kind of funny on our trip up.  When we travel up here, we always stop at a hotel for the night half way up.  We’re retired ya know, no sense in butting our butts to make the drive in one day. So anyway, when ever we stop, we have to drag in the cat in his crate and the kitty litter, amongst other things that we’ll need for the night.  Gary is usually always the pack mule for this task.  And of course, we are always covering up the crate and the litter with big sheets so no one knows we are sneaking in.  This time when we stopped Gary was grumbling a little about trying to camouflage the cat carrier.  I suggested we just stuff him in the cooler and bring the cooler in.  Nothing to look at here folks, just bringing in my cooler :).  Hey, sounded like a good idea to Gary so grab, stuff and the cat is in the cooler.  Needless to say, Smokie was having none of that and he was meowing his objections.  Gary starts whistling a song hoping to whistle over Smokie’s MEOW’s.  When we get to the door, the neighbor across the hall is just coming out of his room.  Gary starts whistling louder and of course the door won’t unlock easily.  But we got the cooler in the room and Smokie was none worse for wear.  Wish I had my camera ready to take his picture when the lid was lifted on the cooler, priceless :).

The next morning we did the same thing except I scooped him up, threw him in the cooler and slammed the lid.  Luckily, I didn’t encounter anyone along the way.  I think this will be our new mode to transfer him in and out of the hotels.  Hopefully he won’t be too traumatized :).

So…….enjoy the summer, I know we will 🙂