First Half of Pilgrimage Complete

We left home yesterday morning in the "Led Sled" as Skye has facetiously named the dark silver SUV, packed with gifts for Christmas and Kelly's shower, dog crates, dog beds, food, spare clothes and only one guitar.

The trip itself was uneventful until Skye, tethered too loosely by me, climbed over the seat back and into Georgia's lap while she tried to navigate me through Uniontown. This resulted in a missed turn, a stop to throw her back over the seat and tie he down more securely, and a few minutes of back tracking to re-find Highway 40, the National Pike.

Once into Washington PA, the motel was not where we expected it, and we spent a few minutes crawling slowly through the city to find it. We were not in the best of humors when we arrived,

We're staying at a new motel that takes dogs, the Suburban Extended Stay Motel out near Highway 70 on the road to Wheeling WV. The motel was clearly designed for the workers who come for jobs related to fracking. They have a "mudroom" in which to take off dirty boots etc. The floors are all bare and hard, and easy to clean, and they have a minimal kitchenettes and don't provide daily cleaning which is OK with us. Fracking is a bit slow now, with gas and oil prices so low, so the parking lot is mostly empty right now.  But they take dogs, and are a step up from the Motel 6 and the Red Roof Inn, the only other places locally to stay with a dog.

After a brief cooling off and changing clothes, we headed over to Alex and Kelly's in Canonsburg, where Skye and Hendrix, their little (40 lb)  mongrel, made their first introductions, in which it was sort of agreed that certain articles of furniture were off limits to Skye, had a walk and then headed off to Kelly's parents, Jean and Bob, for Thanksgiving dinner. It was truly excellent, the traditional turkey, and mashed potatoes and stuffing, baked pineapple and apples, sweet potatoes. I ate about as moderately as I could stand, and topped it off with two thin slices of pie, apple and pumpkin.

We'll be here until Sunday morning I think. Kelly's shower is Saturday, and I'll probably hang out with Alex in the store. I think we'll avoid the malls here on Black Friday (the amount of stores in WashPA is astonishing.

Blogging will continue to be light, and opportunistic.