090611 - Afton, Wyoming

Thursday, June 11 2009

Willard Bay State Park, Utah

After overnighting at a WAL-MART in North Logan, Utah, I headed northeast to a little town in Southwest Wyoming. If you never heard of Afton, Wyoming, don’t feel bad – neither did I. According to my Microsoft Streets and Maps computer program, it’s about a 70-mile trip on state route 89. From past experiences, I have learned to accept this program for what it is – an estimate and a suggestion for traveling from point A to point B. My first hint that this was going to be a long trip was the fact that I was traveling on a road that while well paved and maintained, went thru lots of small towns and municipalities with speed limits that dropped from 65 to 45 to 35 and then 25 in just a few hundred yards. Between the towns, the road winds thru mountain passes with grades of 6 to 8% (with elevations ranging between 4,000 to 8,000 feet), which is just as differcult going down as up. Going uphill kept my speed to less than 45 MPH and going downhill was about the same to avoid becoming a runaway, out of control on a curvy 2-lane mountain road. Oh, did I forget to mention the weather – rain on and off all day. Ordinarily, I can enjoy a slow drive on a small rural road thru small towns and picturesque country landscape, but today was not one of those days.

I’m sure the question that now comes to mind is “why”? The answer – I was on a quest.

Having lost Peter and being without the companionship of a dog was very depressing. I had no idea the psychological effect would be so drastic and traumatic. I had started to cruise the Internet sites for dog rescue agencies just to be able to associate with adoptable dogs and to read about their history and attributes. When living in Los Angeles, this was how I found Peter. It’s the same as Internet dating, except in my case, more successful. In my search, I read about and viewed photos of hundreds of dogs from the entire northwestern area. Since I did not expect to actually find a “match”, I realty didn’t pay any attention to their actual locations. It was just a way to pass the time … sort of like window-shopping without any intention of ever buying anything.

As I scrolled down the photographs and biographies of dog after dog, I was drawn to a handsome gold lab named Dandy. His write up was well done and appealing. I book-marked his page as I had done to at least a dozen other dogs before him and continued my review. I spent about an hour a day for the next few days “window shopping”, adding dogs to my “wish list”: and each day Dandy’s profile and photo would show up. Not knowing where Star Valley, Afton, Wyoming was and never expecting to go there I looked at a map out of curiosity. I was in Ogden, Utah at the time.

It seemed crazy to even think about driving hundreds of miles to look at a dog, when I wouldn’t drive more than 10 miles for an Internet date. Besides, I had been telling myself that it was too soon to think about another dog.

After a couple of emails back and forth to Bonnie, the owner of the rescue agency that had Dandy, I bit the bullet and committed myself to at least make the trip to check him out.

That 70-mile drive took 3 hours. Bonnie and her husband Rick have a small ranch with dogs and cats and horses and claim to have rescued more than 600 animals over the years. As soon as I met Dandy, I knew he was going home with me. He was well mannered, good looking and paid no attention to the 2 cats that wandered around the living room.

The newest member of the Highway Guys is a 22 month old Gold Labrador Retriever mix, 84 pounds (needs to lose some weight) and eager to please and learn but for now, we are just going to spend a couple of days living together and getting acquainted. Lessons will start in a few days. For some reason, I am having trouble calling him Dandy, so I’m changing his name to Danny. I hope he won’t mind.