16 hours and 1159 miles later

I am so frazzled.

I took off from the Ontario Inn at around 10am. The Inn was very dog-friendly, complete with a large fenced-in area in the back for dogs to run and poop. Then I started on my trek.

Thank the gods for audio books because I would have been bored to tears otherwise. I thought about the adage that it's about the journey and not the destination so I decided to do one touristy thing on my drive and stop at the Craters of the Moon. I've only been there once before when I drove out to Portland to move there in August of 2002. It's just as large and desolate as I remembered but I didn't have a lot of time to stop. I started to figure the mileage and how long it would take me and realized I could make it to my parents house but it would be at 2am. I forgot about the time zone change too so it was actually going to be closer to 3am. I think I could have shaved off an hour or two if I had just drove the interstate the whole time but that's so dull.

 The Craters of the moon was my only leisurely stop. Other than that, I only stopped for gas, at which time I would grab a snack and let Dean out to go to the bathroom, stretch his legs and drink some water. He seems to like traveling but I wish he'd eat more on the road. Part of the motivation for making it home and not stopping again for a motel was just to get him settled in a spot again.

When we arrived home, he jumped out of the car into the humid 73 degree weather in the wee hours of the morning. He ran through the sprinklers and then ran into my parents' house and into their bedroom. I was so relieved to be done that all I could do was laugh at his ridiculous nature. It's good to be back.